Onwards and Upwards, originally uploaded by dknNYC.
Now that it's properly 2007, here are ten grim and weird predictions for the next five years. (A few of these are obvious, but I think they aren't often taken into account by our trade.)
1. Several food species will go extinct because they are bred to be too alike. The seedless yellow banana will go first, but who knows what's next?
2. A major U.S. city will run out of safe tap water for weeks, revealing an underfunded water infrastructure. As a result, some water supply will be privatised as it is in other parts of the world.
3. Free municipal Wi-Fi will cripple the mobile phone services market in some cities.
4. The rising standard of living in China and India will benefit labour markets in some parts of Africa and South America as lower paying jobs shift, but won't necessarily affect North America's workers. At some point the search for cheap labour (and the West's free ride) will stop short.
5. There will be a reckoning of the cost-per-click internet advertising model, with Google possibly being the big loser as the numbers for suspected click fraud cases skyrocket.
6. The Long Tail will reach movie theaters, which will go all-digital to serve a public with increasingly diverse tastes. A single cinema screen will be able to show multiple movies in the same day. Many people will prefer to stay at home to watch a massive variety of on-demand movies in their home theaters.
7. Fire departments will begin putting out car accident fires with foam instead of water to avoid electrocuting owners of hybrid electric cars.
8. Global capital will continue to flow into finding the dominant method of capturing and distributing renewable energy before spending money to build an alternative energy infrastructure. A leading island country (Japan, UK, Australia) will be the first to implement one.
9. Creole languages mixing Chinese and English will proliferate against the efforts of governments. These will include variants like Chinglish, Singlish, and Manlish. Nei yu go to school lah!
10. Advertising agencies will be increasingly outsourced to offices located in areas where the cost of living is cheaper and where employees from experienced markets will be willing to relocate. Already global advertising is produced in India. If a leading ad agency can be built in Miami, it can be built just about anywhere.
