I don’t really do these – it just ends up with you looking foolish in 12 months – but Terence has just published his and I am a bit bored and trying to hold off pouring my first beer for another 35 minutes!
The Fediverse will fall..
..or at least fail to broaden its appeal beyond a core community of mainly white, middle-aged, nerdy blokes (like me) who are willing to put up with its eccentricities for the sake of the principles involved. A decent percentage of people who abandoned Twitter for Mastodon will drift away – leaving it as a larger network than it was in October 2022 but it won’t make the leap to being a part of the wider public consciousness (which is totally fine!)
Blogging will blossom..
I think blogging – of the personal kind rather than the quids for clicks fashion/beauty/foodie type – are going to make a comeback. I suspect like Mastodon etc this isn’t going to be huge numbers in the long term but nevertheless will represent a real spike for places like Medium and WordPress.com and things like ‘webrings’ and ‘blogrolls’ will be a real throwback. Things the Ohh Directory show there are more signs of life than in quite a while.
Twitter will complete its transformation..
..into something resembling a QAnon homeland. It won’t implode but will become more and more technically unreliable and less and less comfortable for anyone not inclined towards conspiracy theories, incel rhetoric and Musk hero worship.
Abstaining from tech will go mainstream
This article about teens in the US was fascinating and I think it might be the tip of the iceberg. I think more and more people will find ways to take a minimalist approach to technology. Abandoning social media, removing smart speakers, embracing less smart phones. Some will go to extremes, charities will promote sponsored tech free months but I think it will become a cultural moment.
There will be a significant interactive TV show
Something that is talked about alongside Game of Thrones, Severance, Succession etc where the interactive elements are seen as integral, important to the storytelling and seamless. It will be the last throw of the dice for Amazon or Netflix – neither of which seem equipped to overcome Disney in the medium term.
There will an NY Times bestseller written by a ChatGPT successor
Where the fact it wasn’t a human writing it will be kept secret – rather than the AI being part of the marketing and it will keep cultural commentators in columns for months (some of which will be AI generated.)
Well they are all pretty boring eh?!
Digital by Default 