One silly year end tradition tech blogs love to do is those damn prediction posts. As if writing a tech blog makes these guys some type of Nostradamus. In any case, turns out even I did one last year for lalawag, how cliché.
Ok I admit it, these are sometimes fun to look back on. In a business where things can change so much from one year to the next let’s see how we did:
Francisco Dao will be kicked out of at least 1 event for being too loud and or dressing inappropriately.
RIGHT!
Francisco was indeed kicked out of an event at Blog World for attempting to wear a chip-in-dale costume inside a casino.
We get kicked out of even more events for various shenanigans.
WRONG!
I guess we were good this year, or at least good enough.
Mahalo is sold for 50-70 million, a respectable exit although much lower than Jason’s original goal of a 30 gazillion dollar sale.
WRONG!
Jason Calacanis actually emailed me after this post to personally protest this prediction. At the time I honestly felt he had run out of steam and would be looking for an exit by years end. However in 2009 he has taken Mahalo to huge traffic numbers and even some revenue. Who knows, maybe in 2010 he can ride the IPO train to millions along with Linkedin and Facebook. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit actually.
Fox Interactive and Myspace move into their new office in Playa Vista, taking them further to the outskirts of LA and relevancy in the space.
WRONG!
Which is too bad considering I could be doing some work in those sweet new offices. Sure Beverly Hills is nice but she’s no beach city. Those offices actually sit empty now costing someone a lot of money.
Most of you continue to attend too many mixers and tweetups.
RIGHT!
Although sponsored bar events continued to decline in 2009 due to the economy, you all managed to get out on way too many school nights. Good for you!
Los Angeles fails to get a football team yet again, few in the tech space care.
RIGHT!
I still don’t care either.
Megan O’Brien comes close to surpassing Shira Lazar as the most desired lady in the LA Tech scene.
WRONG?
I would say Shira is still top of pack here in Los Angeles. Megan has managed to ruffle a few feathers in 2009, but apparently not enough.
Desperate for rent money, Alaska Miller moves to LA to write more for this site. At some point he starts actually returning emails too.
WRONG!
No instead he went on some Asian tour to find his spirit animal only to return and stop writing for lalawag.
Spotrunner goes out of business.
WRONG!
Some how these guys are still in business. The amount of outrageous stories coming out of Spot Runner are also in decline.
Brooks Bayne continues to battle us liberal weirdos on Twitter, by years end he gathers more followers than Obama.
WRONG(ish)!
Despite his best efforts, Brooks has not passed Obama in total followers just yet. He does continue to engage his fellow tweeters on a wide range of important topics like #TCOT and bacon.
Hmm, I didn’t do so good huh? Maybe this is one tradition we can skip this year. If 2010 is going to be anything, let’s hope it’s not predictable.
(Banner photo by: Lucas Janin)
