Top Predictions for 2012

It’s a new year, filled with new opportunities.  Here’s what I see coming:

1. Outsourcing continues to grow… but this year it happens in small-town USA. Business processing outsourcing (BPO), especially call centers, bring back jobs to America from India and other places where costs are rising and quality has plateaued.
2. The social Web remains ubiquitous.  Facebook is a trend and like all trends it will fade… but not this year. Specialized social networks will however; begin to seriously chip away bits and pieces of Facebook’s giant market share as generic social networks become passé.
3. Tablets and smartphones continue to eat the PC’s lunch.  Content publishers will make more money via apps, because even when consumers won’t pay for content, they’ll pay for apps.  Content apps become the savior of the publishing industry, as the iPad saves their dying business model… for a little while.
4. Personal social skills decline even further.  Handwritten(?) emails become as classy as handwritten letters used to be… now that people use text messaging to propose marriage, break-up, wish you a happy birthday, have conversations, and dozens more formerly in-person social interactions.
5. Social shopping takes off as paradigm shifting sites like Stylmee empower consumers to be as narcissistic as… Narcissus.  There’s nothing like an ego-boosting roar of digital applause when sharing your favorite ways to spend money with your fellow narcissists friends.  Wish I had thought of social shopping first.

More to come… everyone likes a Top-10 list.