2008 has been a pretty amazing year for consumer electronics, ranging from smarter communicating devices (better sensors, better screens, better connectivity) to amazing sales successes such as the xbox 360 beating the initial xbox sales and the Wii skyrocketing to the top.

But, lots of expectations went short:
Connected devices’ hype is on the down, while they can sense and interact with their environment like never before, no real use case has emerged to enable a steady growth beyond the hype.
Technologies such as Wireless USB or Wibree failed to deliver working mass market devices due both to technical aspects but mainly because of their need of building up a whole device ecosystem to get useful, and WiFi + Bluetooth has definitely become a standard there leaving little room for other standards.
RFID too, which was expected to launch e-wallets and many consumer applications failed to deliver their promises, due to a heavy ecosystem including banks, operators and security providers to organize.

So here come a few predictions for 2009:
First Prediction : 2009 will be the year of the introduction of the Gyroscope in many mass market devices, just like 2007 was the year of the accelerometer. This will lead to massive cost reductions over that component (currently about 10USD and should drop to sth around 2USD)
Second Prediction : 2009 will be a really bad year for connected devices, will new revisions will try to renew the hype, short of use cases and new ideas the industry will be reluctant on re-investing a lot on those devices. Yet, some small vendors will be able to create innovative devices designed to break-even under 50000 units and allowing them to leverage on the gadget fan base to build a strong learning curve. Those devices will also mostly be bound to web services.
Third Prediction : The actual trend for an all-in-one device will start to reverse as the number of sensors and use cases start growing in numerous niche markets (ie fitbit) (read business opportunity). Mobile phones who have imposed over the years as the all-in-one digital life device will have to make defining choices regarding which function is core and needs to be treated with high quality and which can be seen as a gadget and thus be lower quality. Solutions around bluetooth stand-alone add-on devices will start appearing.

Note: pictured on top-left is a MEMS gyroscope – isn’t that kind of design amazing? Source

3D web is an amazing playground for me. While we are really early stage in terms of usage and adoption, we already have a lot of pretty amazing implementations of 3DWeb environments and while the initial hype we witnessed in 2006/2007 is now over real use cases are starting to happen.
Also it’s getting harder and harder to make a difference between an online 3D game (MMORPG) such as World of Warcraft and a 3DWeb environment such as Second Life. Indeed while the latter misses NPCs and objectives and allows user generated contents, both are place where users/players seek each other to spend a time “together” around a common objective shared within that world, wether it’s talking about how to convince the curmudgeon on a role playing session or take down Malygos in WoW.

First Prediction : Most first-tier businesses will be carrying out experiments about the use of 3Dweb within their organization as a powerful brainstorming / meeting tool and will be seeking for ROI not press coverage – those experiments will mostly remain under the hood and private.

Second Prediction : Bots and NPCs will become common thing within 3Dweb environments and IA will be able to start showing its full potential. Those bots will enable a persistent presence within virtual worlds and will try to fight the “alone” effect you get when entering Second Life at random times.

Third Prediction : Accessories especially designed to engage in 3D web will roll out and the one already on the market will strongly develop. We can think here about Logitech’s 3DConnexion or VR-WEAR’s devices and SL-viewer (a webcam *is* a device after all).

Fourth Prediction : 3Dweb will get mobile and to the games consoles. 2009 will see reference implementations of major 3Dwebs on non-PC communicating platforms. While console makers are working on their own 3Dweb software (Playstation Home, and Xbox’s avatars and soon to be virtual world) market leaders will have to move to this market.

Fifth Prediction : 3Dweb will interconnect seamlessly with 2Dweb communication tools. First experiments were witnessed through tools such as SL-Messenger enabling msn/gtalk/aim/yahoochat/twitter/visualbookmarking from Second Life which will evolve as interconnection platforms for 3Dweb communities and common web communities.

If you happen to be in Vegas for CES on January 7th, we’re having a diner with a bunch of French entrepreneurs/blogers/journalists, join the group on Facebook and sign in for the diner !

The last 6 months have been really exciting in the mobile ecosystem field, and the next 12 month will be, in my opinion, totally changing the landscape as we know it.

First of all, phones are getting way better from a hardware point of vue, which mean that even entry-level phones start having really powerful processors and screens are also improving. This is a major organic trend leveraging on natural chipset and components cost reductions.
Along with that hardware evolution, usage of the mobile phone is getting much more mature and now goes beyond voice calls and texting. While using a mobile as a game device has been fast to be accepted, accessign the Internet from one’s mobile does not sound like a crazy nerd idea anymore, and this is mostly thanks to Apple’s strong worldwide Ad presence. Mails and mobile web are now seen as something useful ready to reach the masses.

Thus here comes my first prediction : Even entry level phones (at 1€ with a new contract) will start offering smartphone-like functions such as decent web browsing and emails. Also they will allow high-quality dedicated apps installation as a “first-screen” feature (and not buried in the Application/Java/XXX tree of your phone menu).

The second prediction will have to do with the OSes. Android has finally made its way to a first phone actually on the market since September 2008. Blackberry OS has matured into something more appealing then it ever was. Apple Iphone’s OS is a reference in terms of user interaction and homogeneity, and has defined a new standard for application deliveries through its marketplace. Symbian remains strong and bound to Nokia.

My second prediction is that : Android will enable newcomers in the Phone manufacturing segment to deliver high-quality low-cost hardware and rely on Android for the software thus changing the current balance of power between current vendors and skilled taiwanese/Chinese ODMs. 2009 will see at least ten Android phones coming from totally unknown vendors (at least from the mass market).

My third prediction is that : Windows mobile market share is going to crunch (unless Microsoft really manages to deliver a fast and reactive OS that does not have to live with its history of an early days as a pen-based PDA OS).

My fourth prediction is that : Each OS will bind strongly with one mass market work environment, just as iPhone is bound to iTunes/Mac, Android is bound to google, Windows Mobile to Windows, Blackberry and Symbian will have to take sides and offer out-of-the-box best-in-class support of at least one work environment – and Yahoo! will have to be one of those.

Just saw that ad on Facebook – this is super-weird! How is that ad personalized with a friend of mine ?

One of my preferred presentation at LeWeb08, gives a lot of perspective to what is tangible and what isn’t… and how to monetize emotions.

Photo by Leafar( ulike.net)

LeWeb this year was quite an experience – while last year everything and everyone was shining, this time it was totally the opposite, entrepreneurs struggling to get funding, VCs pessimistic, fund raisers grinning and bloggers blogging but without their usual enthusiasm.
Of course there were innovations, inspiring talks like Gary Vaynerchuks’s (WineLibraryTV) and the usual good stuff (like Marc Canter – this guy is really a shiny refreshing OVNI). Some good contacts, time will tell how effective they really will be, a nice CSG diner where I had the chance to exchange a few words with Megan Smith about Lively and the google X-Prizes… all in all and apart from the little mess on day 1 with the food, the heat and the “corporate talks” I think this edition was up to the expectations.
Geraldine, Loïc, next year try to do more panels and less corporate talks discussions create a nice intimacy and are worth thousand slideshows!



Photo By Rodrigo (vpod.tv)

Nice warm-up party tonight at Opus Café organized by Opencoffee France, lots of entrepreneur friends from all over Europe and a good time to start the “catching-up” thing.

While the first Android phone in the market, the G1, really looked like crap to me, I must confess that this one from the Australian Kogan is pure w00tness. It’s a 3G phone expected to ship January 2009 and retail at about 300USD. Beware though, it has no WiFi and GPS (if you want those add another 100USD to the beast for the pro version)!
I didn’t know the Kogan brand at all and it seems like they are sourcing products from China/Taiwan and just to rebrand and distribute them, which makes me wonder who the real original device manufacturer of the coolest google phone phone I’ve ever seen is (not so much competition here)?

Update: Ok, I must admit I was wrong – I had a g1 in my hands two days ago and while the phone really looks like a brick it’s really far from it! Nice touch, pretty light, nicely finished and awesome screen and keyboard.

Thinkbalm’s Erica Driver just organized a pretty funny event called “Convince the curmudgeon”: a role playing session aiming at convincing Christopher that there is business value in the Immersive Internet.
Lots of amazing ideas and comments during a wild session and overall a really interesting experience including multi-channel communication process and use-case about the immersive Internet (along with a pretty nice list of do’s and don’ts by Sam Driver such as “Don’t talk about virtual world, it’s negative, use immersive internet instead” and such…).
Can’t wait to read Erica’s article on the session
One of my main conclusions is that we definitely need body language and the ability to see a user through its avatar (such as what we did at VR-WEAR ) to give those Immersive Internet a real meaning – and immersive devices would also be more meaningful than the kind of setup required today to access this experience (see the pict below, it’s a bit hectic…)