Summary: Last week, in episode 22, we discussed the year in review. This week we're making our predictions for 2014. You may or may not want to put your money down on our predictions. Depends on how much you trust us, and how much you think we actually know. Enjoy and let us know what you predict. Here are some of the issues we discussed on this episode: Business trends and market opportunities for 2014 First, read Michael's article, 14 Companies That Will Hit the Tech Zeitgeist in 2014. Publishing - Evolving attitude towards micropayments Looking for more opportunities in online education Wearables market - Smartwatches to succeed with the general public while Google Glass and its competitors will remain toys of the tech elite. Investors will pull back from throwing money at over-the-top and social TV. Major maturity with content networks - They'll develop radio and video channels. Using social networks to extend fictional stories that appear in other medium, or social may just the medium of choice. We'll see lots and lots more advertising models focused on enjoyment of content and participation. Increase in privacy education and hopefully application because it's sorely needed. More organizations will begin instituting two-factor authentication (most financial services use it), plus a simpler and wider use of encryption. Rise in project managers that have around-the-world relations and can build and manage a virtual team in an instant. A major sports league will make their content solely available live online. We already see this through the NBA and MLB. This will help as we watch more people dumping their cable subscription services which will cause prices to go up which will cause more people to quit. Like Amazon had success with people using credit cards with the Harry Potter book, there will be another watershed moment for using a digital wallet to buy a highly sought after yet low price/low risk item. New technologies or technologies that will finally have a market viable product in 2014 Do it yourself smart home will be significant with many consumers investing in one-off products such as Nest which just received a $150 million investment to get them started on the road to building a smart home. This combined with wearables will greatly increase their benefit and usage. 3D printing will see its greatest growth in design and manufacturing. Same with robotics. Increase in "Minority Report"-style gesture-based controllers. Plus we'll see an increased use of voice technology by consumers. Will see flexible interactive screens in phones and other devices Consumers next notebook purchases will include SSDs. Who will win, who will lose in 2014 In tech media, seeing a bubble mentality around events. Too expensive and too many of them. We'll see a pullback In old to new media, we will continue to see some moves. Think Re/Code will replicate (Re/Plicate could be the new name) what it did at AllThingsD such as high priced events. The Fremont Project could be a home run or return to earth for Kilar Apple will completely reshuffle its projects, and launch a moonshot or two. Don't think we'll see a TV, but pretty confident we'll see multiple wearables and a smart home effort. Neflix and Amazon will scare the crap out of the cable providers, by landing bigger and bigger content deals. 4K won't take off in 2014 because there simply won't be any content, but we'll see content for 2015 and later. Facebook will add a true Snapchat-like feature through Instagram which will hook in a lot of reticent teens who were avoiding Facebook. They will come in droves and Snapchat's $2 billion offer will dwindle to less than $1 million. And for your amusement, for those attending CES, please read "Pepcom: We'd Like to Invite You to a Party We Don't Want You to Attend." And if you're going to CES, make sure to ping Michael at @michaelwolf. Creative Commons photo attribution to JeepersMedia.
