Chris Brogan on 5 Years From Now

Chris Brogan is nothing if not prolific. He's asking for folks to predict where things might be down the road five years or so from now.That's a heavy load, when it is looking more and more like you can't predict what is going to be next week, much less next year.

I won't pretend to be a forecaster or a predictor because quite honestly I think things are progressing so fast and furious at the moment that it is impossible for anyone or any entity to keep up. But here are some things that I think will influence whatever we do see in five years.

The struggle over copyright and protecting intellectual property is going to continue to become more and more of a hot potato, eventually boiling over into a political, lobbying, and business jumble of chaos. Will there be a revolution and will things change? Not until the folks who depend on the existing model to line their pockets figure out a way to do so with a different model.

Control over identity. Sooner or later users are going to wake up to the fact (some are now) that there is a legitimate issue here that outweighs the potential expedience of "one-click shopping."  We're only one big malfunction and loss of user data away from that happening. Will VRM be the answer there? It is still too much of a fringe and academic exercise to predict at the moment, although I find the concept appealing.

Batteries, batteries, batteries. Until there is a fundamental change in the technology behind what we use to power mobile devices these days, we'll still be held back to some degree.

Advertising. The tech world is willing to stake it all (or almost all of it) on advertising. Sooner or later, that bubble is going to burst and then what will be next. I'm not sure.

Malware malcontents. There is an undercurrent swirling below the surface out there with evil doers taking advantage of naive computer users and creating the potential for all sorts of havoc. It could crash the whole thing overnight. Ask Estonia.

Customer service. While I think that the definition of what we used to think of as customer service is quickly going the way of the printing press, the company or companies that realize that they can make success out of providing it might just succeed. As long as they can clue into the fact that their customers are the people who buy their products and not their shareholders.

Last word. Google.