Top eleven for 2011

Let’s have a go at fortune telling – no cookies involved.

1. eBooks will become relatively normal. It will begin to feel a little silly to purchase products that require cutting down trees, chemicals, huge plants, toxic inks and expensive production and shipping. eBooks are cheaper, fast to obtain and just as easy to read, except in the bath. New Zealand will lag on this one, but the switch will gain huge momentum in the USA.
2. Pacific Fibre will be financed, and prices for capacity between Australia, New Zealand and the USA will continue to fall.
3. The Apple AppStore will precipitate an app revolution, with the best applications migrating to, and many appearing exclusively on, Apple Macs and iOS devices.
4. Rowan, Koz and Amnon will do something amazing – though I have no idea yet what it is, and probably neither do they.
5. There will be some significant wins in the Copyright battles for those that want less draconian protections. The lobbying from the entertainment industry owners will continue to backfire as consumers and their advocates fight for what they want.
6. The iPhone 5 will blow our socks off, and I and millions of others will buy one to match our new iPad 2.
7. The split US Congress will actually deliver some good legislation to be signed off by President Obama.
8. National with John Key leading will easily win the NZ election and form a coalition  government.
9. Powershop in New Zealand will go mainstream – and people will begin to wonder why they ever received paper invoices from their utility
10. There will be no major success from the attempts of large generalist newspapers to charge for content online
11. The All Blacks will lose the World Cup. Admit it – we have gone into every other World Cup looking as strong as we are now the season before, but when it comes to the crunch each players in every other team lays their individual life on the line to beat the All Blacks in the World Cup knock out stage. It’s essentially impossible to play three or four must-win games in a row with opposition like that. (Clearly I’m very happy to be wrong on this)