2008 Predictions part 2
Last week I made a slew of Web 2.0 predictions and now I have some economic and financial predictions for the new year.
1. Google stock will close the year above $1,000/share-a 900 percent increase from $100 just four years ago. Google’s growth is absolutely staggering. There is no internet company that can compete with them. Yahoo’s Microsoft and Interactive Corp (ask.com) efforts to compete with Google have largely been failures. Related reading: http://iamned.com/blog/2007/11/05/google-surges-past-700-a-share-without-resistance/
and
http://iamned.com/blog/2007/10/30/google-nears-700-a-share/
2. Baidu, a chinese web portal similar to google will end the year above $800/share from the current price of $390. Internet use in China has EXPLODED in the past five years and Baidu has a robust 60 percent of marketshare followed by Google China, Sina, Netease, and Sohu. Baidu’s earnings have surged over 2,500 percent since going public several years ago.
3. The ‘credit crunch’ and ’liquidity crisis’ will remain isolated probems that only affect commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds, and mortgage companies. There will be NO spillovers to other sectors.
4. The Dow Jones Industrial Average will end the year above 16,000, a 2,700 point increase. The truth of the matter is the ‘credit crunch’ is not a big deal because it only affects financial companies and revenue and profits for multinationals will continue to rise steadily due to globalization. Exporters and multinationals such as Boeing can take advantage of the cheap US dollar and booming global economy to sell more goods which translates into more growth and higher share price.
5. The technology heavy Nasdaq index will end the year above 3,000 thanks to technology leaders Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, and Research in Motion. These large cap tech companies have massive global growth and will will continue to do so.
7. The S&P 500 will end the year above 1,700 for the same reasons above, chiefly huge global growth from multinationals. Also, the S&P index average PE ratio is only 18, which is well below the PE ratio during the 1999 dotcom bubble. there is still plenty of upside left.
6. Small cap stocks will continue to underperform because they lack the global exposure of large cap stocks. Small caps can’t take advantage of globalization as easily as larger companies, which is why they underperformed in 2007 and will certainly underform in 2008 as well.
Those are my major economic and finance predictions for 2008. If you have any predictions feel free to contribute.
User predictions and blog plans for 2008
Yesterday I posted part one of my technology and economic predictions for 2008, and at the end of the article I asked for reader predictions. Here are some of them:
Jack Rack predicted:
1. Google shares will rise to over $900.
2. Digg will be bought by Microsoft (and slowly be run into the ground.)
3. Myeeos.com will do 1 of 2 things. Become an overnight sensation or literally burst into flames.
My analysis:
1. I agree. Google will surpass $800 easily next year and close the year above $900.
2. I don’t see Microsoft having much of an interest in Digg, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to predict that they will increase their holdings in Facebook though.
3. I wrote a month ago that myeeos has a long uphill battle ahead. The odds of it failing are greater than that of success. However, if myeeos fails it won’t be shut down but smolder. It will be very interesting to see how myeeos unfolds in 2008. One complaint I have though it how long it has taken for the site to be ‘officially’ launched.
Also in 2008 I plan to promote iamned.com more heavily mainly though the use of forums. I don’t have any plans to sell advertising or run ads. The main goals are to grow readership.
Stay tuned for 2008 predictions part 2
2008 Predictions Part 1
Sorry for a lack of updates. Been busy for the holidays.
I have compiled a list of predictions about 2008. This entry will consist of three parts and cover a range of internet, economic, and financial topics.
Social networking and web 2.0 predictions
1. Contrary to all the doomsayers and pessimists there will be NO compelling evidence of the bursting of the so called web 2.0 ‘bubble’. The current trend of social networking and web 2.0 will remain stronger than ever though 2008.
2. Google will acquire 5-10% of Facebook, and the unsold portion of facebook will have a valuation between $25-30 billion. Google’s last resort to enter social networking arena will be to acquire a small stake of facebook for a very hefty price.
3. Myspace’s and Facebook’s growth will continue to surge. Both site will be able to coexist without either one taking too much market share from the other. Facebook will report 80 million members from the current 45 million.
4. There will be no further ‘breakout’ web 2.0 websites. The current web 2.0 leaders (youtube, myspace, digg, facebook) will continue to reign.
5. Google’s Open Social and Android initiatives be be deemed a failure by the majority technology community towards the end of 2008.
6. Facebook’s advertising platform will be a resounding success in spite of the so called ‘privacy’ issues.
7. Web 2.0 sites Linkedin and Twitter will begin to falter in 2008 showing slowing membership growth.
Also feel free to post your own predictions in the comments section and I’ll post them under ‘reader predictions’ later.
Stay tuned for part 2
SEOmoz overrated?
SEO moz is an SEO blog that has received a lot of notoriety lately. For some reason it has become a go-to source for SEO information, and its popularity is showing no signs of slowing. According to techcrunch SEOmoz has taken 1.25 million dollars in funding.
However, upon a more detailed review SEO moz appears to be overrated. A lot of the headlines either seem very trivial, unrelated to SEO, or downright boring.
For example here is one headline in SEOmoz:
New Features in Google AdWords & Google Analytics
If you can rank well using SEO you wouldn’t need adwords now would you? Isn’t the whole purpose of the blog to help readers rank better so they DON’T need to use adwords?
Other headlines seem to actually overcomplicate the SEO process:
Rewriting the Beginner’s Guide: Part 4 - The Basics of Search Engine Friendly Design & Development
WTF is SEO friendly design and development? HUH?
SEO ‘design’ is as simple as just using title tags with keywords, keywords in the meta text, keywords in the body text , and keywords in the anchor text. It couldn’t be more simple.
However, this isn’t 1997 and on-site SEO doesn’t get you very far anymore.
This headline left me scratching my head:
Facebook: What I’d Do If I Ran Your Blog
HUH? How is this SEO related? Completely confusing.
Other problems with SEOmoz is that some of the articles are way too long. Although quality content is important rambling will bore readers.
Overall, while SEOmoz has become an authority source for SEO information, it appears that finding good, unique SEO information is like finding a needle in a haystack with all the filler and clutter articles. There is good content on SEOmoz but you’ll just have to dig it up.