predictions for 2009

Or at least the remaining 97.5% of it.  Meant to get these posted a few days ago, but better late than never.  So after last year's 0.600, onward to the 6th round of fearless predictions for the year ahead:

1) Second Life will return to steady growth and have a shockingly good 2009

By shockingly good, let's say 50% growth in concurrency and James' measure of active users.  Why do I expect SL to rock 2009?  A few reasons.  First, world-wide recession makes SL more valuable as a source of income, cost effective collaboration tool, substitute for expensive travel, and educational resource.  Second, the same recession -- combined with Lively's demise -- means competition will remain non-existent.  Third, Linden has had time to adapt to the many organizational changes 2008 brought.

2) Another Republican Senator leaves his party to become an independent, largely caucusing with Senate Democrats.

As the Republic party tries to differentiate and reinvent itself in 2009, I see some moderate Republicans facing very interesting decisions about their political futures.

3) Microsoft gets its shit together

Let's make a few things clear.  I am an exclusively a Mac household, EMI Digital purchased Macs, I helped make Second Life cross platform, and the only Microsoft product I use with any regularity is MS Office for OS X.  However, I have never visited a large corporation with such a high percentage of brilliant, motivated, and thoughtful employees as Microsoft, Microsoft Research, and Microsoft Games.  The current downturn is a perfect chance for Microsoft to make some hard decisions about its future, to refine its engineering team, and to finally shake up it's traditional internal divisions.  Moreover, with MS stock at a 35% discount, MS could make interesting acquisitions leveraging the fact that the deal will ultimate be worth quite a bit more as the stock market recovers.  Obviously, Google, IBM, Intel, et al could also do this, but I think MS is going to be the first of the tech giants to figure this out.

4) Across the industry, 2009 global recorded music sales contract by low single digit percentages, pulled down by double digit physical sales drops but buoyed by large digital gains.

Pretty self explanatory.

5) Linden Lab gets acquired

For the earliest employees, this is year 10 at Linden Lab.  For most of the investors, this is year 8.  With capital markets in the toilet, even with the great performance I expect out of Second Life this year, an IPO is impossible.  Thus, the pressure of no liquidity -- from investors, from employees trapped by AMT, and from the increasing need to be able to diversify the Second Life product offering to begin [edit: s/being/begin/] truly rebuilding the code base -- is going to mount, with an acquisition the logical way out.  Per the MS discussion, an acquisition this year may be for fewer absolute dollars, but in the long run the deal would be more valuable as markets recover.

6) Fiber-to-the-home becomes part of the economic stimulus/economic recovery package

If the United States is really going to focus on national competitiveness, innovation, education, and infrastructure, nothing would provide as cost effective a change as a national FTTH project, bringing truly high speed network connections to at least 90% of US households.

7) New models for innovation, entrepreneurship, and education emerge during the downturn

As I wrote earlier this year, there is a sweet spot at the intersection of  traditional venture funding, Y Combinator-style micro funding, and education.  Especially in 2009, with a national focus on competitiveness, there is an opportunity to try this.  More in another post.

8) Israel learns that there must be a balance between legitimate national security concerns and its moral responsibilities to those it governs

Why is the Daily Show the only balanced coverage of this?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Strip Maul

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

9) Something completely new in the web, social space will successfully launch in 2009

By success, I mean more than 100,000 customers and a real business model.  By new, I mean not just virtual worlds in a browser, but something that mixes the web, social, media, and fun together in new ways.

10) I will travel less in 2009 than I did in 2008.

In 2008, I flew 180,000 miles and 102 segments on United.  Admittedly, nothing in the Joi or Larry's worlds, but too much for me.

So there you.  Share your predictions!

time to grade predictions

Happy 2009, everyone!  Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but moving into our new SF offices, actually writing code again -- more on that in a later post -- and the holidays have pushed blogging down the stack a bit.  However, for the fifth year in a row it's time to grade my predictions from the previous year.  Without further ado:

1. The teams I built at Linden Lab will do amazing things this year (duh!)

A bit of a gimme, but credit to Linden folks for coming through a tumultuous year and delivering on some long-promised features.

1 out of 1 (1.000)

2. Social search engines -- such as Foxmarks, Wikia Search, and others -- will generate initial results that are strong enough for Google to release a Google Social Search Beta to great fanfare and limited use

I so want to give myself half a point here, since Google talked about social search a lot this year, all the social networks introduced search, and Google started paying more attention to social networks in general, but they didn't do it.

1 out of 2 (0.500)

3. The breakthrough feature on the '08 iPhone will be video capture, editing, and video blogging more than 3G

Ug.  When some of the 3G design rumors emerged with a front facing camera I was pretty stoked.  Alas, they were just rumors.  I wonder if I was just early on this one?

1 out of 3 (0.333)

4. In Europe, virtual world content will increasingly fall under country of origin rules, greatly simplifying the European Union regulatory requirements

Looking back over past predictions, I have a pattern of being early on predictions involving large organizations and bureaucracies.  Time will tell on this one.  Some academic discussions and white papers supporting this idea, but no real action.

1 out of 4 (0.250)

5. Games and virtual worlds will once again be vilified in the name of "family values" during the 2008 Presidential election

Not nearly as much as I feared -- mostly thanks to the remarkable campaign of Barack Obama and the economic collapse -- but still plenty of uninformed rhetoric about games, violence, and addiction.

2 out of 5 (0.400)

6. Despite number 5, games and virtual worlds will be the cornerstone of at least one nation's effort to reform their education system

I can't claim this one, as no national effort exists, but if any country was going to stand out it would be the United States.  2008 demonstrated that there is no shortage of new and interesting ways to leverage virtual worlds and education.  It also shows no sign of slowing down.

2 out of 6 (0.333)

7. Despite additional packet tampering and shaping by broadband providers, no effective network neutrality legislation will be passed

This continues to be an incredibly complex issue.  I'm not convinced that true network neutrality regulation is even possible, but I feel that continued debate on the issue is important if we are to find compromises -- network transparency, perhaps, where you are always able to tracert your routes? -- that deliver the guarantees the Internet requires.

3 out of 7 (0.429)

8. Between AIR, Gears, GWT, Silverlight, and Weave, some technology will nail a user experience that smoothly supports both Web and offline usage via a browser

Google just opened this up for docs, although it isn't perfect yet.  Fortunately, a proof point does exist in Balsamiq Mockups.  Check it out if you haven't for a great example of what AIR can do.  Ditto the brilliant work by the folks at Aviary.

4 out of 8 (0.500)

9. As the actors join the writers, more AAA content will be developed for machinima, virtual worlds, and the web as a way to give audiences fresh material without crossing picket lines

4 words.  Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog.  Not to mention a steady stream of machinima hitting the mainstream as never before.

5 out of 9 (0.555)

10. By the end of 2008 I will be building or working on something as challenging and interesting as Second Life

In hindsight this feels like a gimme, but writing just after Philip forced me out of Linden it was a stretch.  Fortunately, the challenges and opportunities at EMI are fascinating, far reaching, and plentiful, so I am thrilled to be able to claim this one!

6 out of 10 (0.600)

0.600 again.  Predictions for 2009 soon.  Thank you to all the friends, co-workers, students, and family who made 2008 such a strange, tumultuous, and ultimately wonderful year.

predictions for 2008

It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future
- Yogi Berra

Once again, it is time for me to put a stake in the ground, to fearlessly predict what is going to happen over the course of 2008. As the great philosopher-poet Yogi points out, this ain't easy.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it
- Alan Kay

What makes this harder is that for the first time in this millennium, I'm not actively building the future. I expect that I will again soon, but for now I have many pieces of technology and knowledge to catch up on. So, I'm shooting in the dark more than normal. No more stalling, on to the predictions.

1. The teams I built at Linden Lab will do amazing things this year (duh!)
   
2. Social search engines -- such as Foxmarks, Wikia Search, and others -- will generate initial results that are strong enough for Google to release a Google Social Search Beta to great fanfare and limited use
3. The breakthrough feature on the '08 iPhone will be video capture, editing, and video blogging more than 3G
4. In Europe, virtual world content will increasingly fall under country of origin rules, greatly simplifying the European Union regulatory requirements
5. Games and virtual worlds will once again be vilified in the name of "family values" during the 2008 Presidential election
   
6. Despite number 5, games and virtual worlds will be the cornerstone of at least one nation's effort to reform their education system
7. Despite additional packet tampering and shaping by broadband providers, no effective network neutrality legislation will be passed
8. Between AIR, Gears, GWT, Silverlight, and Weave, some technology will nail a user experience that smoothly supports both Web and offline usage via a browser
9. As the actors join the writers, more AAA content will be developed for machinima, virtual worlds, and the web as a way to give audiences fresh material without crossing picket lines
10. By the end of 2008 I will be building or working on something as challenging and interesting as Second Life

Obviously, that last one is the one that matters the most to me.

So, what do you think will happen in 2008?

grading my 2007 predictions

Since 2004, I have been making predictions and then grading them the following year over on Terra Nova. Here are the past results:

• 2004: 6 out of 10 correct, for a 0.600 batting average which would have me on the front page of the Mitchell Report.
• 2005: 5.5 out of 10 correct, for 0.550.
• 2006: 5 out of 10, 0.500.

Not the best trend line, but overall not too bad. Plus, a lot of them arrived a bit late.

• In 2004, I predicted that successful MMOs would start being released by small, independent developers. Took a while, but Second Life, Club Penguin, Webkinz, Puzzle Pirates, Sherwood Dungeon, and many others have changed how we think about MMO development.
• In 2005, I predicted the use of a virtual world as part of a CAD/CAM tool and Caligari added collaboration features only 3 weeks too late. My prediction about reality shows in virtual worlds also came true in 2006.
• In 2006, it was the idea of a philanthropic/research foundation, which the MacArthur Foundation ran with in 2007. And the winning candidate from the 2008 Presidential campaign will most likely have leverage virtual worlds as part of their strategy.

So, how did I do with my 2007 predictions?

1) Intel and AMD’s battle in the MIPS/watt game will take servers below 30 watts/core

• 1 for 1. Per core TDP is now below 16 wats/core and about to plummet again.
  

2) Second Life’s peak concurrency, currently at 25,000, will reach 150,000

• 1 for 2. Second Life was on track for this for the first 4 months before growth slowed. However, concurrency is still at 60,000, making it the largest single shard world.
  

3) Graphics cards will be released with small batch rendering and unified texture memory thanks to John Carmack and others

• 2 for 3. While those specific changes aren't exactly what happened in 2007, thanks to the FPS community, DX10 class cards are worlds ahead of where they were a year ago for rendering highly dynamic scenes.
  

4) A Second Life development company, such as Electric Sheep or Rivers Run Red, will surpass 100 employees

• 3 for 4. At least 3 solution providers exceeded 100 employees during 2007.

5) Exchanges within MMORPGs and virtual worlds will still not be taxed until converted into real-world currency

• 4 for 5. W00t!

6) At least one Presidential candidate will use Second Life to build a community around issues rather than simply holding a single press conference

• 4.5 for 6. This is a tough one. On the one hand, many candidates have had multiple events and built communities within SL, but I haven't seen a real commitment to building an ongoing issue discussion. On the other hand, NPR's Science Friday and SciIslands have built an ongoing, regular science discussion, use of SL to host global warming discussions is heating up. So, giving myself a half-right.

7) AACS will get pwned and at least one major Hollywood studio will experiment with downloading unencrypted DVDs

• 5 for 7. Well, AACS got pwned multiple times and some independent studios have non-DRM download services, but no major studios, so half-right.
  

8) Relay for Life will raise over US$200k in Second Life this year

• 5 for 8. Relay for Life raised over US$120k, so I'm still thrilled for their success.
  

9) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will have more US$ sales on its release day than any book, movie or video game in history

• 6 for 9. HPatDH sold over 11 million copies in the first 24 hours. Even assuming a discounted US$18 average sale price, that passes Halo 3's US$194 million first day.
  

10) Dmitri will agree that I have won my quarter [EDIT: link added to original bet] by the end of the year

• 6 for 10. Sadly, the one I really wanted to win. On the plus side, I'll get to teach with Dmitri down at USC in the spring, so that makes up for it somewhat.

So, reversing the trend, and back to 0.600. Stay tuned for far less-SL-centric predictions coming in 2008.