This is a continuation of yesterday’s review of my predictions for this year. My score so far 5 out of 6 - not bad so far.

7. Apple launches the iPhone

Well, actually I first predicted this back in August 2004, when it was genuinely a “wow! do you think so” thought. And by January, it was a pretty easy call.

I did write though “But I hope it doesn’t try to cut corners by re-purposing a standard Moto phone and interface. It needs to start from scratch and show us how it should be done.”

Shame they didn’t listen and it must be the biggest hyped flop of the year.

Points: 1

8. Mobile Marketing Explodes - Not

I think I was spot on the money here again. A year of talk, a year of agency hype, desperately trying the crank-start the market, but in terms of results, we got a few “text and wins” and not much else.

When will this go mainstream? Every year since 2001, it’s been “next year is going to be the year”, apart from my predictions, of course.

Actually, certainly in the UK, the mobile marketing scene is looking grim, with one or two notable exceptions. Most of the original players are downsizing - or at least pulling in their horns - as they struggle to find a business model that makes sense.

Will next year be the year then? Read our 2006 Predictions to find out.

Points 1.

9. Blogging continues to go from strength to strength.

Hard to argue against that.

Points 1.

10. Mobile Phone Virii

I wrote that it would be a year of hype with the real story being “… that to catch one you’d have to be as unlucky as to get struck by lightening on a clear day while standing in a rubber suit at the bottom of a swimming pool.”

Incidentally, if you think this predicting lark is easy, look at what Deloittes wrote in their predictions for 2005:

“Electronic viruses will run rampant in PCs, cellphones, PDAs and gaming consoles. Nuisances such as unsolicited e-mail (spam), unsolicited instant messages (spim) and attacks on Bluetooth-enabled devices (bluejacking) will become common.”

MobHappy 1.

11. Mobile Video Slow to Take Off

I wrote that I thought there would be a market for short, downloadable video clips (as opposed to TV) but that because it would be “pretty costly in both data download costs and content costs” it would be slow to take off.

It certainly has, so I’ll give myself a full point for 2005, though the jury is still out on the long term.

Point: 1

12. MP3 and Mobile Converge

I think we’ll see that 2005 was the year when stand alone MP3 players peaked.

What is certain is that the market continued to converge, as predicted.

Points: 1

13. DRM

I said that it would be high on the agenda, but it was doomed to fail and that

“…it might be a better use of the content owners’ considerable energy and talent to think how they can work with the new trends of their business model, rather than trying to stuff the fully grown adult lion back into the bag it doesn’t want to go into, with their bare hands.”

Well, it was certainty very high on the agenda and the whole Sony Fiasco proves my point way beyond even what I expected.

Points 1.

14. Voice is the Killer App for 3G

How the 3G operators have struggled in 2005 to come up with another reason to buy 3G handsets, other than cheap voice calls. We’ve had speed, video calling, dating applications, video downloading and a few others besides thrown at us.

But the phone is primarily about communication, as least so far and voice remains the master.

Points 1.

So, I’m a little embarrassed to write that my score is 13 out of 14 so far. If you disagree with my scoring feel free to tell me in no uncertain terms!

Also, if you have any predictions for next year, write to us and we’ll feature the best ones in a post soon.

Tune in tomorrow for the final ones, where I’m going to lose one more point - or will it be more? And look out for next year’s predictions over the holiday period.

Image from Chervokas Blog.