65 (Mostly Sarcastic) Marketing and Technology Predictions [2013]

*Disclaimer, this post is meant to be funny and should not be taken overly seriously

Sometimes you need to look into a crystal ball and predict the future. Sometimes you get into a mood where you want to do it in an off the wall and sarcastic matter. This is one of those times.

Here are my 65 (mostly sarcastic) predictions for what will happen in marketing and technology in 2013. Why 65 predictions? well, because 13 * 5 = 65. 13 represents the year 2013 and 5 represents the number of times that I expect you to laugh out loud reading this post.

But don't take my word for it; let the predictions do the talking.

1. Google will finally come up with a local business specific advertising system that actually works well for local businesses
2. People who have never used Siri before will talk about how Siri is a “Google Killer”. 3 years from now they will finally use Siri, realize they were stupid, and cry a thousand tears.
3. Apple Maps search functionality on iOS will improve, making it a viable mapping program, but by the time this happens, everyone will have switched over to third party apps like Google Maps
4. Keywords will become cool again
5. Jesse Eisenberg will be ousted as the CEO of Facebook and he will be replaced by Mark Zuckerberg
6. Microsoft Surface RT will emerge as the tablet of choice for people who want to use a tablet for work instead of playing temple run while watching TV
7. Everyone will claim that they are measuring everything on the web, but in reality they will be measuring nothing of value
8. We will finally see meaningful online and offline measurement become available to the masses
9. Big Data is the new social commerce
10. Amazon.com will unveil Amazon Tube, their new delivery system for packages that involves a series of pneumatic tubes underneath the USA alongside our Internet grid. You will never have to wait for a package again. When not being used, they will lease out the space as the world’s greatest amusement park ride
11. You will need to be at least 48″ tall to ride in Amazon Tube
12. Google will integrate advertising for local businesses into Google Maps turn by turn directions and anything else using a GPS system
13. There will be a million posts entitled “Link ____ing is the new link building”
14. SEOMoz will acquire the assets of LivingSocial after they run out of funding, cementing their future dominance in the local business marketing space
15. Google will introduce an advertising product that makes the already easy act of advertising online even easier… to give your money to Google
16. Someone who is primarily a digital marketer will obtain a leadership position in a digitally backward consumer company, revolutionize how they do business and forever change that industry
17. Twitter and Facebook will continue to fight each other for supremacy in the biggest egos contest
18. Google Search results will start to look like banner ads where you can't actually click on the result. Every time you hover over an organic result, the target moves and a little mascot appears and says “sorry, but you can't do that. teehee!”
19. LinkedIn will figure out a compelling way to charge for their service and quadruple their revenue as a result
20. Buzzwords will be coined and forgotten before you can say “Rich Media Experience”
21. iPod accessory makers will seek revenge on Apple for lightning cables, taking on the role of a jealous ex-boyfriend who just can't let go
22. The store manager of the Blackberry store will jump ship for a better job at an Apple or Verizon store, making the same move every phone user has over the past 5 years
23. Google continues to be the Kleenex of search. Nobody is ever going to wake up one day and say “I better Duck Duck Go that answer”
24. Rank Checking dies its 1,000th death and website owners will still obsess over rankings
25. People will continue to compare Android to iPhone in completely asinine ways. Android is an operating system that makes Google ~$10/user/year and creates profits for several hardware makers. iPhone is OS + Hardware and makes Apple $300+ per user. What would you rather have, 50% market share at $10 or 25% market share at $300? If you say the 50% market share, then please leave my blog.
26. Apple will not produce their long rumored TV, but instead they will power other TVs with their software and make their money on content subscriptions
27. If Apple does not make their software available on third party TV's, they are leaving a huge void that will be filled by Amazon
28. Someone will buy a Windows Phone, genuinely like it, and not have an inferiority complex when their friends make fun of their purchase
29. HBO Go will become available as a subscription only service, independent of cable providers
30. The music industry will continue to be fucked
31. A commercially available mobile device will be introduced that has a keyless laser keyboard. It will be expensive, but set the tone for the future of input on mobile devices
32. Some big names will leave SEO, and some big names will come back to SEO
33. Mobile credit card scanners will become so mainstream that paying with cash will be deemed “retro” and there will become a vocal group of cash-only advocates
34. There'll be a major breach of security involving Dropbox, resulting in countless articles about how people saw it coming all along
35. Somebody will finally say something actually intelligent in a YouTube comment
36. Instagram will continue to grow in popularity; no Facebook does/doesn't do to the application. You can never underestimate the power of making amateurs feel like professionals
37. Google+ Authorship will become polluted and exploited, to the point where certain authors are banned from the index. These authors will receive little notification on why this happened, and it will be difficult to get authorship back. This will be much like how websites were de-indexed before Webmaster Tools became more transparent. SEO's will call on Google to become more transparent with the rules of Author Rank, how many sites you can author, etc. Google will provide a vague set of guidelines like “only list the sites you contribute to” and “make sure that you create great content”. These guidelines will be taken as bible and misinformed people will create rules that may or may not be realistic or not for when and how to use authorship. In other words, it will be exactly like how SEO works right now.
38. Google's self-driving car will have their first accident, but instead of admitting to it there will be a gigantic cover-up. Better be safe and register googlecarcoverup.com now
39. Steve Jobs' DNA and Ted Williams head will breakout of a super secure Cryo-Facility, go into hiding. In 2030, the first ever 5-tool Mathelete will emerge from a small town Missouri and invent baseball playing robots
40. Restaurants will finally embrace digital ordering and payments, increasing accuracy of orders while limiting the needs for wait staff
41. While they may not be successful in beating Google, Ask Jeeves, Mahalo, Duck Duck Go, Cuil and Wolfram Alpha make a great intramural basketball team. And who can forget 6th man of the year, Blekko
42. The guy who played the father of the character Data in the Goonies will claim rights to the trademark of Big Data
43. We will learn that Yandex literally translates to Viagra Spam in Russian
44. Someone will claim that SEO is dead. Others will throw a fit and write about why SEO is not dead. Long time SEO's will sit on the sidelines and laugh
45. Amazon.com will become the “Amazon” of another industry that we never saw coming and doesn't make sense at first glance
46. WordPress and their parent company Automattic will continue to be so silently profitable that everyone will be blown away when it is revealed that Matt Mullenweg is worth billions
47. Online Marketing Gurus will continue to make more money talking about how you can make money online than they do making money online
48. Buzzwords will continue to be out of control, pretentious, yet so enticing. When you look back at the buzzwords you used in 2013, you will have the same “what was I thinking?” moment that you did when you saw pictures from your Limp Bizkit faze in 1999
49. The synergy from win-win situations will help with low hanging fruits from turnkey solutions before they need realignment will be a real game changer in a web 2.0 world
50. Hubspot will buy SEOMoz OR SEOMoz will buy Hubspot OR they will merge
51. Google+ Communities will lead to Google phasing out Google Groups for good. It is also a large threat to groups on LinkedIn, which are mostly havens for spammers at this point
52. Apple moving manufacturing back to the US will result in millions of Chinese hipsters boycotting Apple products
53. Foursquare will not find a way to make money, but will gain users at a higher pace than they lose users due to fatigue
54. Someone will say that this is the year of mobile, but what they are really saying is “I have no original ideas”
55. Google+ will release a desktop client, but not allow content to be published via an API
56. Wal-Mart will try unsuccessfully to buy Amazon.com
57. Companies that were established in a pre-digital world will continue to avoid having to embrace the digital revolution, while maintaining a profitable state of ignorance
58. We will find out that only 3 people use Siri: Samuel L Jackson, Zoey Deschanel and John Malkovich
59. Amazon.com will allow you to subscribe and save next year’s Christmas presents
60. Sony will wake up and realize that Samsung is the new Sony, and Sony hasn't made anything compelling in 10 years
61. Microsoft will make so much money off of their corporate contracts that their consumer business results don't really matter
62. Steve Ballmer will laugh all of the way to the bank when he reads stories about the death of Microsoft
63. Print will become cool again, when it is personalized, timely and beautiful
64. Comcast will continue to send 100+ direct mail pieces a year to people who are already their customers 
65. Some of these ridiculous predictions will come true, most of them won't

There you have it – a series of predictions that get incrementally more crazy. I hope that you had as much fun reading it as I did writing.

What did I miss? Sound off in the comments.