2011 Predictions Recap

So I had some hits and some misses this year. I figure in the tradition of the last few years I’ll recap my guesses and also post tomorrow my predictions for the upcoming year.

1. Facebook growth slows, they hit 650M users by 4th quarter of 2011.
So I was a bit off on this. I was correct in slower growth, but they hit the 650M user mark in the 2nd quarter and were on their way past 750M mark by the 4th quarter. They however have been a bit more quiet this year when it comes to announcing user engagement figures.

2. WordPress ecosystem grows up
Totally wish this had really taken off, but still hasn’t. Things missing are a centralized app store, better monetization tools from Automattic, and better promotional tools for companies to monetize their apps/services. The market did grow though, there were a number of companies in the market place making 7 figures gross though. Sadly Infinimedia was not one of these (though our WordPress products are profitable, and we have more planned for 2012).

3. The first Youtube millionaire emerges
So this one is hard to track, but if you count Rebecca Black as a millionaire, from selling her tracks on itunes, and performing, then theoretically she is a YT millionaire, though I was hoping from purely YT generated cash. So I suspect there are a few who are close, who hit 500M views this year on their videos, but again, impossible to say.

4. Apple’s Mac App Store does $1B in gross sales.
Apple hasn’t released any conclusive data about this, and if they have, its buried in a line item somewhere in their annual report. I think the mac app store most likely DID do a $1b, but the volumes are way lower than iOS app store, and app price points are higher.

5. Apple gives away Lion for free or Less than $30
So they sold it for $29, so I hit the nail on the head here.

6. Twitter hits 200M users
I believe the official number is 250M users, but something along the lines of 80M Active. Another good bet by me.

7. Fox sells off Myspace for LESS than it bought it for
So Fox/News Corp sold Myspace for something along the lines of $35M if I recall correctly to Specific Media. This happened end of June. Since then, nothing has changed on Myspace, it is still a sinking ship. So I got this one right.

8.Groupon goes on a buying binge & hits $3B in gross sales.

So Groupon IPOd this year, hit close to $4.5B in gross sales, and did buy a few companies, though not as many as I would have liked. They didn’t buy as many companies as I expected them to, as they were short on cash due to their absurdly high burn rate. 
I’d say this was right.

9. Facebook credits expand beyond facebook

So aside from being able to buy Facebook credits in Target and CVS, you really can’t use them outside of Facebook. So I’d say this was wrong. I truly expected them to try to be the wallet of the social world.

10. Google reboots android marketplace.

This they definitely did. So did Amazon by introducing their own app store. So another hit for me.

Final tally, depends on how you count some of these, but I’d say I’m close to 60% correct on these.

What do you think will happen in 2012?