2012 Predictions:
1. Second Life keeps going, marketing as a game. Not much changes.
2. OpenSim gets a couple middleware player coming into the market with a great business offerings and adoptions of OpenSim by business and universities continue to bloom.
3. Star Wars: The Old Republic is a smash hit.
4. World of Warcraft slowly wanes, losing another 2 - 3 million customers. That said, even at 7 million customers, Blizzard's done a fine job at retaining paying subscribers.
5. Diaspora gets bought or majorly funded.
6. Google+ fades away in Google's streak of closing down interesting projects and trying to make everything ad-driven rather than seek additional revenue models for different products.
7. Multi-player Augmented Reality games catch on, a little. A movie will come out and use one of them for a cool, but under-noticed and under-appreciated ad campaign.
8. Apple continues to lose market share to competitors in mobile and tablet markets, because as easy as it is to point at old Star Trek episodes and say, "Oooh, we should make THAT device!" apparently Steve Jobs was the only one at Apple who forced it to happen.
9. Politicians get hands on with social media for their political campaigns. Building on what exists, politicians will go more and more direct with constituents.
10. The RIAA / MPAA will lose a landmark copyright case as they've pushed free speech issues too far.
11. Net Neutrality regulations put forward by the FCC continue to be upheld by the courts.
Bonus: The world doesn't end because of the Mayan calendar. It's a frigging round wheel calendar; it's mean to repeat, stupid. :)
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Qui Sont Les Josettes Noires?
3 days ago
2 comments:
1. Google Trends
Google Trends shows a clear drop for SL and Opensim, Google Trends: Minecraft, Opensim, Second Life http://www.google.com/trends?q=minecraft%2C+opensim%2C+second+life&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Please explain why Opensim search activity levels in Google Trends have dropped by 50% in the past 3.5 years - Google Trends: Opensim http://www.google.com/trends?q=opensim&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
2. Gaming Industry
This is the water fountain, where the horses are drinking and jobs are being created, Gaming Industry Economic Data http://www.theesa.com/facts/econdata.asp
3. LL's 2012 Gaming Strategy
Linden Lab To End Era As Second Life-Only Company In 2012 http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/12/2012-linden-lab-pivots-from-second-life.html
Linden Lab and a few Opensim players are on the Gaming train...
4. Minecraft
Millions are balking SL and Opensim... this is not counting stones http://www.minecraft.net/stats
@Euro:
Thanks for weighing in.
1. In 2006 and 2007, there was massive hype around virtual worlds. Now there isn't. However, there are an increasing number of people doing things quietly. This has been my experience with the space over the last 5 years. I'm not surprised those search terms aren't trending.
2. Most definitely. Gaming industry is parallel to Hollywood, only it's still mostly in the US and Canada. (compared with Hollywood, made mostly overseas) I suppose I could have made a prediction like, "Gaming will keep getting bigger" but it seemed like a no-brainer to me.
3. That's what happens when your CEO comes from the games industry and your Board of Directors are impatient, I suppose. I think diversification may be good. I'm interested to see if they try and play with existing social media gaming space or if they try and strike out on mobile, or what ...
... regardless, this is a new skillset for Linden Lab, and they have a big learning curve. I doubt we'll see much traction with LL and gaming in 2012.
4. Yeah, no doubt. Second Life's been marketed poorly for years, and Minecraft is the latest and greatest. Minecraft, however, needs to go totally social if it wants to be more than a 2-3 year trend, in my opinion.
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