Being the Prediction Expert – nay, Deity – that I am, I feel it’s my duty to share with you my one random prediction for 2006.  But first, let’s review what I said on January 4th 2005 – precisely one year ago today…

MSN is my ‘big tip’ for 2005… Google could be seriously threatened

Let’s all celebrate how wrong that prediction was… MSN has made big leaps forward since January 2005, but it’s not even close to challenging Google’s dominance in the search marketplace.  But as the Google behemoth is increasingly questioned by the internet community at large in the same way that Microsoft began to be questioned in the 90s, perhaps this is the moment for some other internet technology to break through and change the internet in the same way that Google did.  Indeed, business experts already report the beginnings of a second dot-com bubble.

Some say that citizen journalism will change the face of the web and the news media.  That, as far as I can see, is a load of bollocks.  Not to put too fine a point on it, of course.  But, frankly, idiots like me spouting ‘news’ and half-baked opinions and predictions (see above for example), however loud we shout, are never going to rival the newsgathering power of organisations like the Beeb.  Yes, quality citizen journalism brings a personal aspect to the news – you just have to read some personal accounts written by those caught up in th 2004 tsunami or the 7th July London Bombings to realise that.  But as more and more sites like mine spring up, where the uninformed essentially pontificate on the day’s news of which they are hardly informed themselves, the genuine wheat becomes harder to separate from the ever-increasing chaff, and the value of citizen journalism as a whole declines.

The blog is distinctly not the killer application of the web.  But what is? 

How the hell should I know?