Following Russell’s lead, I thought I’d review my predictions for 2006 that I made at the end of last year. Ditto to his comment about the confusing numbering, we each did 10 out of 20, in no real order, and click through the links for the original posts detailing some of my original shots.
Predictions 3 and 4:
- 3G won’t kill Wi-Fi, WiMAX won’t kill 3G. There will be no killing of rival radio technologies.
Check, one point. I’m hard pressed to think of any technology killing another this year, despite predictions that Wi-Fi would totally own all over 3G and so on.
- Operators will still struggle to find the key selling points of 3G.
Hmm. While we’re starting to see some changes here, I’m still going to award myself a point. Overall, operators still aren’t pushing anything particularly exciting on users because of 3G. This may be starting to change (3’s X-Series, perhaps mobile TV), so maybe in 2007.
- MVNOs will gain in popularity, with new services announced and launching regularly. But the thinning of the herd will also begin, with at least one high-profile casualty before the end of the year.
Ding, one point. Plenty more MVNOs were announced this year, while Mobile ESPN and EasyMobile provided two high-profile crashes.
- RIM will take it on the chin, even if it comes out of its patent suit okay. Push e-mail will become a commodity offering from carriers, and rivals like Visto, Seven, Nokia and Good will make gains in the enterprise market, partly because of their support of all types of mobile devices.
It’s a bit early to give myself a point on this. RIM’s rivals did make strides in the last year, but it’s still on top of the market. I don’t think I’m wrong here, but my timing was certainly off.
- It will become common for low-end devices for emerging markets to have color screens and cameras.
I’ll be generous and give myself half a point; color screens are happening, still waiting on cameras.
- Myopic thinking, bad pricing and pointless services will continue keep mobile music from realizing its potential.
I’ll take a point here, too. Very little has really happened in the mobile music market this year. There have been some cool launches, like PartyStrands, but operators continue to fail to impress.
- Mobile virus FUD will continue unabated, but with no real threat or impact.
Score another point. F-Secure is still in business, right?
- Mobile blogging and photoblogging will grow, filling in a personal media-sharing gap intended for MMS.
I believe this is on target, too — witness things like ShoZu, Radar Vizrea and Mojungle.
- Mobile payments still won’t take off outside Asia.
Check.
- Presence, or some sort of availability management software/system will be a hotly desired feature by the end of the year.
This is a miss. Again, I think I’m just too early here: as things like IM and Skype move onto the mobile in a more major way, the desire for presence systems will increase. Maybe this in 2007 as well.
So that’s 7.5 out of 10 — proving Russell’s half a point smarter than me. Well, you’d hope in the head start he had on me on the planet, he’d have picked up a few things 
Add your predictions for 2007 in the comments here or on Russell’s post, and let’s see what will happen next year!
strange that mobile payments is still a mostly asian thing. what makes asia conducive to mpayments?
Just a comment about music. While admittedly it hasn’t shown very highly (mainly because the networks are rushing into TV with the usual calm and clarity), it has actually grown massively within the networks.
For example, SFR (Vodafone France) will have 3 million sales in France alone this year - not bad for a service that only formally launched in May. Orange is at a similar level in France and a bit less in the UK, and 3’s music sales have quadrupled in a month thanks to some advertising.
I can also hint at the rate of growth of sales is also extremely high - to the extent where, on current figures sales via the networks (in this one market) will overtake iTunes next year.
Now if there are hundreds of thousands of tracks sold in one country each month by each of the major networks, is this a failure?
Ben
[...] As Russell promised, here are my predictions for 2007 following my stellar performance last year. You get all ten of mine in one go, though. Be sure to add your own predictions, or link to them elsewhere, in the comments. [...]