2010 Predictions

It’s not about looking back in life. It’s about looking forward. If it was about looking back though I would look back to a time when I was a young man. I was in the clothing business in those days. Ah, the clothing business. Those garmentos make you web guys look like the pussies you all are. Just get users? They wouldn’t even know what the fuck a user is. They get customers and they all survive quarter to quarter. VC’s are you fucking kidding? Factors baby. That’s a nice word for a loan shark. VC’s have no consequences if you lose their money. These were Glengarry guys. Real fucking men. ABC. The company I worked for was the third or fourth largest young mens company in the world behind Levi’s and Bugle Boy I believe. Anyway, the place was insane. I was hired in their sales training program, which meant I was essentially shit on by everybody. This lasted about a month before I went in to tell the Sales Manager “Irv” I was leaving. Irv was wild. Mid forties I guess, longish gray hair, always in a blue suit, stainless Rolex, hot shiksha model wife, and an apt. on Fifth Ave. The whole deal. This fucking nut was pulling down like a million a year as a sales manger garmento. He also managed about $300,000,000 a year in sales. So I walk in and I say “Irv this is bullshit and I’m fucking done. I’m not gonna take shit from these fat fucks anymore.” Even then I goofed on the fat guys, they hate it, but I didn’t care Irv was lean like me. Irv is not impressed as he screams in no particular direction “Oh really? And why the fuck not kid? Why the fuck not? What makes you think you can fucking sell? Huh? What the fuck makes you think you can sell?” “Because I close.” I said calmly. So Irv decides that he’s gonna call the bluff and tells me that at 4PM that day JC Penney is coming by to see the Spring line and he wants me to present it. “See you at 4 Irving.” I say as I leave his office.

So 4:00 comes and I go into the showroom. Irving, myself, and a male and female JC Penney rep. Irving introduces me and I proceed to show them some of the most disgusting polyester shit you have ever seen in your life. Patterned brown polyester suits with waist coats. You know like waiter coats. Except ours were brown and double breasted so you had the added fashion element of 36 buttons. My pitch would have made Willie Loman cry. “This is a very European look. It’s very fashion forward.” I said with a straight face. “I wore this number myself just the other night to a club opening and it was great. The fabric really reacts well to the natural flow of your body while dancing. The fabric really breathes well.” At that point Irv who was behind them almost wet his pants because we both knew that this crap was essentially made out of colored and patterned thick ©Saran-Wrap. It’s plastic for chrissakes. The clothing tags should have had a parental warning on them not to leave the clothing around kids. Little Timmy suffocates in daddy’s brown polyester waistcoat wouldn’t be good for sales I suppose. I go through the line and I know I got them, and I did. They bought. A lot, many millions of dollars in fact.

Irv promoted me and I became a specialty salesman. I was ripped in those days and I was perfect sample size. 6ft, 32 waist, 34inseam, 44 jacket, 9.5 shoe. I had it going on as they say these days. It was great. We sold the monster accounts as a team for awhile. I would model this nonsense and throw in dopey adjectives while Irv pounded the per store unit sales. During lunch I would bang Irv’s secretary up on the 14th floor storage area. I eventually did quit though, I had an opportunity in California that I took. That’s a story for another day, and like I said this is about predicting the future not reminiscing about the past.

Here are my 2010 predictions.

Linux finally comes to the desktop…inside an Android phone that you put down on your desktop when its time to get real work done on your Mac.

People realize that social media experts are liars.

Scoble cracks 280 lbs.

All bloggers will continue to wet their pants whenever they are mentioned in the NY Times, you know the paper they all hate and think is doing it all wrong.

TechCrunch finally overtakes Valleywag.

Palm goes under or is bought by Motorola.

People go back to bookmarking to avoid the constant stream of idiocy through rss and social media sites.

AOL buys Mahalo.

Arrington elopes with the blue chick with the tail from Avatar. He shuts down TechCrunch and takes up professional surfing on the Senior Surfing Circuit in Hawaii. The blue chick with the tail opens up a Poi stand by the beach. They are happy until Mike loses to Buzzy Kerbox in the finals and falls into a deep depression forcing her to leave and go back to her planet. After his recovery Arrington falls in love with Duane “The Dog” Chapman’s wife whom he meets at a filming where he is an extra hired to play the ukelele which he became proficient at while reading AllThingsD after the blue chick with the tail leaves for her planet. They soon marry and Mike starts a new candy company. MacadamiaCrunch.

Twitter ads take off and then Twitter bans it. They invent their own scheme which goes over about as well as the retweet thing, and manages to bring even more downtime to the site.

Twitter loses its shine as people notice Facebook has integrated photos, videos, music, games, payment system, and 10x the users and a shitty UI.

Facebook changes it’s name to AOL 2010.

A semi-famous blogger will commit suicide.

A famous blogger will be stalked and murdered. The perp will have used social media geo location services.

Tiger Woods will marry a very light skinned black woman.

Dave Winer is institutionalized.

Seesmic goes out of business. Loic freaks, but he’ll be fine he’s got LeWeb.

The Apple tablet changes the course of computing history.

The JooJoo crunchpad case gets resolved. They all lose, which is a good thing. (See above.)

Blogging growth slows as kids see fat middle aged creepy man losers doing it and would rather not get involved.

Scoble cracks 300lbs.

Julia Allison comes out of the closet.

Chris Pirillo comes out of the closet.

Israel becomes a tech powerhouse.

Brad and Angie get divorced. Brad gets back with Jen. Angie stays single. She just fucks a lot of different guys.

Big brands realize that social media doesn’t mean shit to their bottom line.

Mommy bloggers are caught in a sex trafficking scandal.

I will punch someone in the face during an interview. Photo of blood-covered puppet goes viral. Leads to a TV/movie deal which I promptly screw up.

Lotion is placed in all conference gift bags to help facilitate the circle jerk. “The blogger puts the lotion in the basket.”

VC investment in blogs dries up. re: GigaOm, Business Insider, sites that will never ever matter yet were funded. Not happening anymore.

SEC investigates financial sites.

A few very powerful yet not publicly recognized Google employees will quit and enter politics.

The NY Jets stick with Sanchez and suck again.

Yankees win World Series. It will be Georgie Boy’s last he sees.

Michelle and I have a threesome with one very lucky lady. Blurry, poorly lit video comes out, you know how my vids usually look. It doesn’t matter.

The CPM dies except for junk. Brands realize that all the numbers are lies, most of the traffic is bots, and no one is clicking their little 125×125′s or 250′s.

CPA and accountable results start to matter.

The affiliate marketing business explodes and goes mainstream.

First people, now places. Things will become the next social objects.

Hugh MacLeod is recognized as an important artist. A work will sell for $100,000 or more in a NY or London gallery.

Obama’s approval rating continues to drop until he sends out a zillion emails again. E-mail marketing works.

We go to war with Iran.

Mashable is bought for 50 million.

Scoble gets fired. Twice.

Satellite radio is done.

Apple makes televisions.

Samsung buys Sony.

I finally get off the fucking internet and get to work with other artists in a real medium. You will never see another “Monday Matters” again in your life. Unfortunately for both of us I don’t think this is going to occur though. See you next Monday.

PS. Here is what happened in 1938.