Jan 2004 - happy new year issue

5 January 2004:Jan 2004 - happy new year issue

This month I am reviewing 2004 and what we can look forward to.

This month it is customary to look forward to next year. So here we go.

Web Driven has been very successful and I have had some very favourable comments. Topics for next year will include:

Next month I will be talking about email security, and in particular the latest Microsoft email client Outlook 2003. If you send an HTML newsletter or if you use forms in HTML emails, you need to know about Outlook 2003.
I plan to write a newsletter about newsletters. I have some ideas for a consortium of designers to generate a design newsletter which I will be exploring.
Accessibility is becoming a major issue, particularly in the public and charity sectors, and I hope to be able to use a guest author who is an authority on this topic.
I will probably be ranting about popup windows again. The next version of IE will have integrated popup blocking so you may need to take action soon.
I may be writing about XML in 2004. I have tried this before but gave up when I realised how hard it is to make the subject anything except terminally boring! However XML and Web Services are going to be important next year so I will take another shot.
Of course more about search engines.

Please get back to me with any topics you would like to see covered.

Traditionally at this time - my predictions for 2004.

Google will drop in coverage - maybe to number 2 (from about 80% of searches now). By end 2006 I predict they will dropping like a stone and their stock will be heading for penny levels as the management structure self-destructs. Anyone who saw the speed with which Alta Vista went from top search engine to nowhere will have no doubt about how fickle search engine users are.
AOL will look increasingly shaky. AOL is in essence a dial-up service provider. As frequent users move to broadband they will tend to move away from AOL, so both numbers and demographics will be a problem for them. They won't be going out of business but this year will be the start of a long slow decline.
Junk email will create a crisis in the email system. I don't hear of any plans to fundamentally address this issue, so expect matters just to get worse.
In the electronics field expect more convergence/divergence. What do I mean? Expect (for example) a mobile phone that is also a computer (or at least a PDA), an MP3 player, a reasonable camera, a video recorder, a web browser and will wake you up with a cup of coffee (maybe not the coffee bit). Expect also a wrist watch mobile phone that is so simple it doesn't even have a keyboard, just voice activation. So convergence of many devices into one and divergence into very specialised but also very small devices.
The internet user population worldwide will pass half a billion early next year.

I would like to wish everyone a happy new year, and look forward to doing business with you next year.