Hooray for 2008 and I hope your year is joyous and not yet bloody! 


Will 2008 continue our international discontent? Can we begin to escape the acquisition of tragedy and the loss of treasure that is created when unholy wars are waged against sovereign nations?

Here are my 2008 Predictions and I hope you’ll comment on them and share a few of your own! Keep in mind the goal here is to be outrageous, inappropriate, inventive and daring — anyone can predict the sun will rise tomorrow, but few can predict what the sunshine will find. 


BLOGGING: 

WordPress: My concern with WordPress lately — and I’m on-the-record as a fanboi and totally in love with Matt and his Automattic lads — is that they’ve fallen behind a bit in the path-blazing of adding new features that have meaning and depth. While I enjoy falling snow and the possibilities of linking to Answers — what I really want is OpenID commenting like Blogger has where anyone with a Gmail or TypePad or WordPress account — or whichever other OpenID account they might have — can comment on this blog. Knowing who people are on the internet is becoming more important every day and OpenID registration helps solve that matter a bit while also opening up new avenues for communication. 
I also would like direct integration with Google Site Maps like TypePad now employs.  One click and you’re set up.  Right now WordPress.com does not directly provide support for Google Site Maps in your administration interface — you can try to kludge it with an RSS feed, but that isn’t practical. 
The fact that WordPress.com now offers their own enhanced RSS feed means — to me anyway — that they will soon be sending down advertising with your feed as they do on WordPress.com blogs:  Why else copy what FeedBurner already does well? It must be a strange disconnect for WordPress.com to use Google for AdSense, but not for direct Google Sitemapping or for using Google FeedBurner to re-burn your feeds — as you can do in the administrative interface on both TypePad and Blogger right now. When I publish a new article on TypePad it is in Google within a minute and when I use WordPress.com my article appears hours later:  
Six months ago the reverse was true. I also keep hoping for buying-in to an advertising-free WordPress.com hosting service that would also provide access to a private support forum where only WordPress.com employees and moderators answer questions instead of volunteers who demand attention and beg compliments from those they are supposed to be serving from the bottom of their hearts. All-volunteer end user support, in my experience, always leads to bad feelings and ill-prepared answers and self-crafted kingdoms where those who post the most messages — even if they are linked garbage — try to claim the crown as “The Most un-Appreciated Volunteer in the History of Online Support.”  Noise pretends to be quality. 

TypePad: There were several welcome changes on TypePad in 2007.  We can now have paged index pages and we are able to more directly deal with trackback and comment Spam.  My hope for 2008 is that the 15-character limit for blog URLs will be increased and that their alleged private forum for top-end paying users will finally come into being — but I’ve been waiting for that forum to open for five months, so I’m not holding my breath. 

Blogger: The OpenID change for commenting on Blogger in 2007 was a spectacular and brave move because it actually welcomed non-Google registrants to post on a moderated blog.  Now more people can comment on your Blogger blog without being locked into a proprietary single sign-on service.  I hope for 2008 they finally get backlinks and pings working. 

Spaces: Currently Spaces is unusable.  Let’s hope in 2008 they get Trackbacks working and that the service is actually working on weekends.  I could go on, but why bother?  Nobody there listens anyway. 

POLITICS: 

War: The USA will, in mid-2008, make a major insurgence into Pakistan in order to help “retain order.”  It will be a mess and lead to the indiscriminate dropping of small nuclear bombs in pockets of the Middle East.  Bush will be befuddled and senior republican leaders in the Senate will have to move quickly to preserve the fate of our nation by finally checking and reigning in the executive branch. 

Democrats:  The democrat nominee will be Barack Obama.  My ugly nightmare is he will then be assassinated before the general election in a sickening, “Last Hurrah,” return to the Old-South mentality that “slaves cannot lead free men.” Obama’s killing will be awful, but found in his death will be the beginning of the end to Racism in American because the good people — the moral center of the country — will be angrily outraged at the stupidity of his death in their want to vote for him, and they will no longer tolerate any Racial Hate Speech again in their presence. 
The replacement nominee will be Al Gore — who will be drafted by the outcries of good Americans mourning Obama’s death and Michelle Obama will, unfortunately, run as Al’s second for Vice-President — and together they will win in a landslide and bring sanity back to foreign policy and universal healthcare to every American. 

Republicans: The republican nominee will be John McCain.  Huckabee is a wannabee.  Romney is too slick and too religious to win the corners:  We See Through Him!  McCain will overplay his warlord hand, and while he wins the evangelicals he has correctly historically hated — but now requires in his deal with the Devil — he will lose the rest of the country as a niche player. Rudy Giuliani may win to nomination, but it would be foolhardy for the party because of his marital infidelity and his immorality against the firefighters in the run up to 9/11.  The FDNY will not allow him to become president.  He is enemy number one on their list. 

3rd Party Threats:  If New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg runs for president, he will lose. We don’t want any more Ralph Nader or Ross Perot or Ron Paul candidates that harm the process instead of enhancing it.  We’re stuck with a two-party theogony and trying to change the will of the gods is to return power to the dividers and the warmongers. 

TECHNOLOGY: 

Computers: Macs will become the new Windows machines for Windows users.  With that success will come viruses and hack attacks.  More software will also come to Macs as the line between Microsoft and Apple begins to blur in Apple’s favor.  Parallels will be sold to Microsoft, who will then kill that Windows-virtualization software under an Intel Mac, and “Virtual BootCamp” will then become the new Parallels and Microsoft will sue Apple for Copyright infringement and that will send the cyber-world laughing at the morose turn of the screw. 

Google: It is time for Google to grow up and release software and product that are not labeled as “Beta.”  They need to offer reliable and predictable end user support.  It is ridiculous to sell Google Apps as an enterprise-level solution for big businesses and universities when five out of seven “Apps” are “Beta!”  Only Pages — a real dog — is not beta as well as Postini — purchased in an acquisition — is not “Beta.” I am totally confused by Google’s plan for Google Apps — and even I wrote a book about how to use Google Apps!   
Google are obviously afraid of losing the Beta tag for some reason and that is terrible for building confidence in the marketplace and for calming end user concerns.  They also need to be much more open in detailing their future plans to those who seek to promote and help them or they will be doomed to be the next Netscape. That’s it for now! How did I do? What did I miss?

25 Comments

  1. Wow, you really hit all the bases, David! I’m with you politically minus the Obama death part – though I do realize that is a sad possibility. It reminds me of Eddie Murphy’s bit on if Jesse Jackson were elected – all of his speeches would include him running around stage ducking all the time.
    Well, even the Pope started riding around in a bullet proof vehicle…

  2. Gordon —
    I certainly hope I’m wrong about Obama being killed — but when you consider the vitriol aimed at Harold Ford, Jr. — a Black Man from the South — when he ran for the Senate in Tennessee —


    — and one can easily begin to see how Barack Hussein Obama will be treated in the media and in real life on the campaign trail.

  7. Happy New Year
    Some interesting thoughts there.
    Open ID on WP would be excellent. I still think that WP is a *ripe target* for a bid for the companies that are lacking a good blogging engine – Yahoo perhaps?
    I worry for Barack – I am concerned about Pakistan …….. and PLEASE not Al Gore. ( no more born again anythings! )
    I went and looked at last years predictions – that was interesting – some of them made it, some missed by a whisker and others faded.

  8. Hi Nicola!
    Happy New Year to you, too, my friend!
    Yes, OpenID will be killer here! I saw Matt Mullenweg comment somewhere that he loved that idea that Blogger implemented so hope is high he will push for it to be adopted here.
    I think everyone just assumes WordPress.com/Automattic will become part of the Yahoo! family so I didn’t think that was a prediction. 😀 There is a strong, pre-existing Yahoo! relationship with Toni, an Automattic bigwig, so when the time is right I’m sure that move will be made.
    As you know, I despise Yahoo! in all areas and sorts so I will be heartbroken when that day finally comes because it will mean the instant death of anything interesting when it comes to WordPress. Yahoo! won’t even install the latest edition of MovableType for their users! Users are stuck with version 3 when version 4 is so much better and has been out for at least half a year. That’s bonkers!
    I, too, worry for Barack. He’s a bright star and the darkness is threatened by his luminescence. They cannot hide with him in power.
    Pakistan is more dangerous than Iran in every way. Do we see that? Is calling them a partner in the “War Against Terror” enough? I doubt it.
    No Al Gore? Wowser! Why? Is he really born again? Or are you speaking from a political point-of-view?
    I thought about providing analysis of last year’s predictions — but I just hate going backward instead of forward. I’m glad you went back to check to see how right and how wrong I was. 😀

  9. I agree I am not sure any Yahoo tie in will be good for WP.
    The AL Gore comment is about his whole attitude – very *born again* and very evangelical about his chosen subject matter – as well as from the political re-birth point of view.
    I do not see any problem looking back – so long as we learn the lessons that have to be learnt when we do so. (This maybe a particularly English/British trait – learning from our history.)

  10. Nicola —
    Yahoo! will let WP die. That’s what they do. They acquire. They do not improve. It will be a sad day for WP.com if that happens.
    I get your point about Al — I just think he’s earned his good deeds instead of having them handed to him. He’s a better choice than any republican out there.
    I love to look back — just not on things I already know and experienced. Some things are done and dead and you move on. 😀

  11. That would be a very sad thing for WP is that happened.
    Couched in those terms I agree with your comments about AL Gore too.
    Your last comment made me smile – some people just wont give up – my personal bete noire that we have previously discussed decided to put their head over the parapet this morning.
    Just what I didn’t need at this time.

  12. Nicola —
    Yes, I hope a WP sale isn’t in the future — but everything and everyone has a price so I assume it will happen sooner than later. Habari is on the horizon to grab all the dissatisfied WP power users so a sale, if it should be in the offing, should come before Habari pulls in the reconciled hearts and minds of those who loved WP when it was just starting out.
    Yes, with Al there is a lot of couching going on — but at least we’ve seen the sort of man who could’ve been leading us the last 8 years instead of the thefted thing we got.
    Ack! The return of the neverending circular conversationist — run inside and hide! 😉

  13. Will now go and hunt down who and what Habari is/are.
    Must admit I would prefer Gore to Clinton – but I think the world needs Obama.
    Yep – my little energy vampire is back ………. 🙁
    Knocking in my inbox.

  15. That looks very interesting indeed ………. interesting enough to make me want to know more about how it all works ………… I may have to become a geek after all!
    I wish changing my email address would solve the problem – I have to have at least one open visible one for the business. Maybe introduce a filter or two.

  16. Hi Nicola —
    Yes, the smarts behind the Habari project are sort of disaffected former WordPress fans who wanted to start all over again from scratch and make a blogging platform they want to program for that doesn’t rely on forks or pre-existing code. I understand it is pretty fast and robust, but development is a bit slow.
    I love filters! I live by them. Do you have the new Gmail 2.0 yet with labels? I created tons of color labels and now I just glance at my Inbox and precisely know where the mail is coming from and who it is intended for and on which account it needs processing. Truly divine!

  17. Not sure if us freebie Gmail users get Gmail 2.0 – will have to check. I could have fun with coloured labels!

  20. Here’s an interesting article on Obama’s safety concerns:

    MANCHESTER, N.H. — Secret Service presence has increased for Sen. Barack Obama since his dramatic win in Iowa, amid fears over the safety of the man seeking to become America’s first black president.
    The Illinois senator’s security now rivals that of President Bush, with a dozen Secret Service agents wearing dark suits and earpieces leading bomb-sniffing dogs through event venues, sweeping all equipment brought by journalists and flanking the candidate as he plunges into crowds of supporters.
    “For many black supporters, there is a lot of anxiety that he will be killed, and it is on people’s minds,” said Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a Princeton University professor of political science and contemporary black culture.
    “You can’t make a prediction like this — like he has ‘a 50 percent chance of getting shot.’ But the greater his visibility and the greater his access to people, there is a danger,” she said.
    Another black presidential candidate, Jesse Jackson, drew Secret Service protection because of violent threats during his campaigns in the 1980s. And former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ruled out a presidential run in part because his wife expressed fears he would be assassinated.

    http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080107/NATION/415598644/1001

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