B.L. Ochman's 2009 Online Marketing Predictions: Mobile, Better Lighting, Subscriptions Rule

By B.L. Ochman
With timerity, I offer my Internet marketing predictions for 2009. They are in no particular order. I think the words of the year will be mobile, subscriptions, lighting, and blog advertising.

2009 is going to be a roller-coaster ride, but we'll be fine in the end. I wish you all a year of peace, good health, prosperity, love, and growth. Thank you so much for reading What's Next Blog for all these years. You rock!

1. iPhone will finally allow a BlueTooth keyboard to be attached so you can actually type instead of using iPhone's stupid excuse for a keyboard. Other manufacturers will follow and phones will eclipse laptops. No matter how light the laptop, those mothers are heavy and cumbersome with battery, adapter, case, etc. that you have to schlep with you.

2. Correct lighting for video cameras and vlog broadcasts will be the must-have product of the moment. That's because nobody likes looking at dark videos and ghoulish-looking people.

3. Podcasts will either adopt better production values or die. Dunno about you, but I can’t listen to rambling podcasts. Brevity is a virtue.

4. Google stock will hit $1000 a share and split. The founders will cash out and the company then accused of piercing the corporate veil with creative accounting. They’ll come out on top before the end of the year, and new accounting standards will be set by the case. I predicted this last year. I was premature.

5. Nobody will buy Twitter. It will adopt a subscription model for corporate clients, and every fifth tweet will be an ad unless individual users pay a small fee for ad-free Tweets.

6. Bloggers who built their personal brands with blogs and then diluted them with Twitter, FriendFeed, etc., will return to their blogs in earnest. (Including me)

7. Pawfun.com will be a huge success. B.L. Ochman will end 2009 as a t-shirt marketer, retiring from consulting.

8. MySpace will be replaced by a social network that bans ugly pages and stupid music that won't shut off.

9. Blog advertising will become the hot ad medium of the year and ad agencies will screw up big-time as they learn the ropes. I've been saying this since 2005, but it takes a while for agencies to get the picture.

Savvy advertisers have already learned that it is possible to have outrageously high click through and conversion rates through obscenely cheap and highly targeted blog advertising. Shameless plug: I have consistently achieved click thru rates as high as .857%, and averaging .268% with niche-focused blog ads.

Bonus Link: B.L. Ochman's 2008 Online Marketing Predictions: Mobile, Subscriptions, Collaboration Rule

You don't like ugly MySpace pages and repetitive music, fine. What about pretty pages and no music?

From your keyboard to God's ear! Especially #2, #3 and #8.

I always thought the purpose of video was to have the image seen by the audience! Can't see it - then you have a podcast!

And 60-minute podcasts with 20 minute rambling introductions that keep the listener from hearing about the promoted topic from the guest speaker are just killing me.

As for MySpace...I had forgotten all about that thing...and you reminded me why I did.

There are tons of blogs out there that are ugly, and some of them even have music that won't shut off. It's a disease that has taken over myspace, but it has spread!

Hi B.L. I concur with your assessments on the iPhone and lighting! It's amazing what passes for "quality" video :)

I've added a link to your '2009 marketing predictions' post at my marketing predictions aggregation project site - www.2009marketingpredictions.com.

I def. think Myspace has to do something on cleaning up the pages because to much control over your page and load times are long for some of the ugliest social profile pages to date.

Nice predictions all-- and the podcasting one is closest to my heart-- by "production values" i usually talk about the technical side-- base level audio quality is as important in serving listeners as in limiting the "rambling" content(aka "from the heart" podcasting*).

*Not that I am completely innocent here, but hey.

MySpace is getting bad because of the ads and spams around. Nice predictions and very cool article!