Top 10 Media Trend Predictions for 2007

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan submits: At the end of last year, we published our Top 10 Tech Storylines of 2006. We were going to avoid the Top 10 Trends or Predictions of 2007 and instead do something else (we still will do that, expect it on January 1st).

But then Pete Cashmore of Mashable.com challenged us to suggest some predictions for 2007, you know our saying: “Ash and you shall receive” (though we already somewhat covered this back in October here):

To see our trends, scroll down to after the following quote (for an imagination run wild scroll down to #6 ACQUISITIONS & MANAGEMENT SHUFFLE, or course, take the scenic route).

Our philosophy for trendspotting is:

It’s important to note that every year, something that is adopted by early adopters online in the previous year takes off with mainstream masses the ensuing year; while something that was already very much in vogue with mainstream audiences the previous year takes off and crystallizes.

A look back at history reveals a familiar pattern:

We’ll start from 2004. After all, 2003 can be viewed as the turning point and renaissance of the Web.

2001 was the abyss, no doubt. In 2002, things began to stabilize, and 2003 marked the turnaround. This was confirmed and highlighted with Google’s IPO in 2004, which left no doubt that the Web had shaken its hangover off and would go on to become a viable medium, and a very viable one at that.

In 2004, blogs were the buzz word (even though these were around for years). The macro-level phenomena to draw blogs into the pop culture lexicon were clearly the escalation of troubles in Iraq (and the mainstream media’s reluctance to cover them) as well as the Presidential Elections. For example, as the mainstream media sugarcoated Iraq, bloggers covered the facts as they were, or rather, as they viewed it.

In 2005, it was social networks that became hot while blogs became more and more mainstream. Think of how many more people started blogging in 2005. The reason why social networking took off, frankly, had to do both with demographics and technology. Social networks like Tribe, Friendster and MySpace had been around before 2005 of course. Demographically, the so-called trend-setting 16-17 year old crowd had entered high school at a time when the Web was part of the curriculum and de rigueur in classrooms. Technologically, broadband had taken off, camcorders and cell phones made digital media commonplace; the two were a match made in heaven and social networks like MySpace took off.

continues to reac click here