Anand Sivashankar's blog

Comment-It's easy to behave like one with a bee in the bonnet, but were these advertising intrusions not free to begin with ? Can't see this revolt actually materializing. P=0.6.

2. The Phone and Web Worlds Will Merge. Or: Walled Gardens Get RoundUpped. Net Neutrality will prevail; carrier and ISP garden walls will fall. Box guys will win over Pipes guys. Handheld makers will win over carriers, a la Apple and Nokia. Samsung, Microsoft, and Google now join them in control.
Tribes move from phones to the Web as part of this merger. Question: How do you carry your tribal affiliations around on the Web? Widgets let you put them in Facebook

Comment-Already there is an amazing bonhomie between the "M " & the "e" worlds, and that could strengthen as we go on. Business alliances would need to sharpen though. P=0.8

3. Content Has No Boundaries. Or: By Expanding, the Web Disappears. Content will be provisioned to every device, making the “Web” seem an outdated idea, like “multimedia.” As it moves onto phones and TVs, it becomes invisible. I want the service; I don’t want its history. The separation between print and Web providers becomes outdated. Everyone distributes everywhere.Serious Segmentation of Online Ad Monies Defines the Spend Trend. Start segmenting by user age: the young are surrounded; the older are less tolerant of the din. Ad money will flow preferentially to luxury online and permission-based marketing.

Comment-Can happen sooner than we think. The kids are already barking at postmen and dismantling the landline with practised ease . P=0.7

4. High Definition Drives a Reversal in Global Standing for U.S. Bandwidth, accompanied by an extraordinary bandwidth increase. Rabbit ratios (MHz/dollar) jump worldwide, with the U.S. suddenly leading in growth rate. Provision of 5-10 Mbps will not be unusual in the U.S., which will see the most rapid bandwidth takeup increase YTY to date, as users start to demand HD-quality video everywhere. The FCC looks foolish and oh so art deco, again. Australia looks smart.

Comment-The battle for elusive bandwidth is being fought in India in another context but not for these reasons. P=0.4

5. Fake Internets Become Serious International Liabilities, as corporations pressure countries to behave according to international business norms – specifically, China, Burma, and a handful of other countries with Fake Internets. Fake Nets imply weakness, government failure, and second-class status for these countries and their citizens.

Comment-It's always been interesting to note that so-called retrograde rulers have considered it worth their while to keep up with the continuous negative information supply. Still, Google in China buckled ..... P=0.4

6. One-to-One Education Is Accepted As the Global Goal. Three-quarters of U.S. school superintendents are planning for it. Maine, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Michigan, Arizona, Utah; England, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, Nigeria, India, and China are implementing it. If your state or country is not planning for this, you will be left behind in the 21st century. Using global digitized knowledge to teach and learn will become the only obvious solution in education; the goal becomes connecting every child to this knowledge via the Net.

Comment-Not quite there in India. P=0.2

7. U.S. Healthcare (finally) Gets Diagnosed, as a result of the presidential campaign. Reforming healthcare will challenge Iraq as the primary issue of concern during the year. (In 2009, something gets done about it.)
Among the problems we’ll find:
Doctors report to HMOs (and not to patients).
HMOs report to shareholders (and not to patients).
Insurance companies dictate pricing – often are primarily in the investment business, but don’t share investment profits adequately when they come in, and only report directly to shareholders (not to patients).
Government programs are rife with fraud by doctors and institutions.
Defensive medicine is practiced at huge cost increase to avoid lawsuits.
Over-testing also pays fees to doctors and pays for the equipment, while acting as lawsuit vaccine.
There is very little use of IT to reduce costs; the industry can’t even launch proper Electronic Medical Records. Guess what? It makes more money re-creating them each time you switch.
No one reports to the patient, and almost No one gets paid for good health outcomes.
Exhibit A: There is no penalty for killing your patients.A few answers: cap legal awards, make doctors directly responsible to patients, and remove HMOs and insurance companies from the mix, since they contribute nothing and take much.

Comment-It will, it should. P=0.7

8. CarryAlongPCs Become Commonplace. Small personal computers (UMPCs/micro notebooks) gain their own as a category as these new “CarryAlongs” are introduced by major players – a trend expanded by the iPhone and currently best served by the Samsung Q1.

Comment-Not here, not now. P=0.3

9. LEDs See a Meaningful Shift into Industrial/Commercial/Residential Use. Pricing drops aggressively, and new uses and conformations of LEDs become available.

Comment-India could lead the research on this one. P=0.5

10. 2008: The Year of the First Production and Commercial Sale of Alternative-Energy Cars in the U.S. Yes, we had the much-missed EV-1 a decade ago, and lots of golf cart-like things since, but this will be the year of never-turning-back on commercial alternative-energy vehicles. While GM dawdles over the Volt, Honda will deliver the hydrogen-powered FCX Clarity in California. The all-electric Tesla Roadster will be produced and silently speeding down our streets, with more for sale and new orders taken for its WhiteStar 5-person sedan. New electric sports cars from Altairnano, Phoenix Motors, and other California brands will make seeing an alternative-energy car on the road something new, and more common.

Comment-India has made a small beginning in the two-wheeler segment. Will take awhile.P=0.4