IDC released a revised tablet market forecast for the year today with the major takeaway being that Android tablets may finally become the dominant player in the market. The availability of cheap tablets, most noticeably Android tablets, will lead to tablet shipments to see a sizable increase this year.

The firm predicts that the worldwide tablet market will ship 190.9 million devices over the course of this year with Android making up 48.8 percent of the shipments. Apple isn’t too far behind, however, with 46 percent of total shipments. Android may become the dominant player this year thanks to the wide breadth of options available, but it’s incredibly impressive to see Apple stand toe-to-toe in shipments with only three models.

Both iOS and Android will see some losses in their marketshare over the next five years as Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets start to take hold. IDC predicts, however, that these Windows tablets will be much like their Windows Phone 8 counterparts – a distant third place with Windows 8 tablets expected to only command 7.4 percent of the market by 2017.

“Microsoft’s decision to push two different tablet operating systems, Windows 8 and Windows RT, has yielded poor results in the market so far,” said Tom Mainelli, Research Director, Tablets. “Consumers aren’t buying Windows RT’s value proposition, and long term we think Microsoft and its partners would be better served by focusing their attention on improving Windows 8. Such a focus could drive better share growth in the tablet category down the road.”

Those who prefer eReaders over tablets may not like what’s coming next as IDC’s final prediction for the next five years sees the tablet precursors only having a few more years of growth ahead of it before the market starts an irreversible downward trend in 2015. By then, however, most consumers will have probably switched to multimedia tablets as the market will drive down prices to super affordable levels by then.

According to the folk tale, six more weeks of winter are predicted by Phil if he sees his shadow. If not, an early spring is “just around the corner.”

The tradition of Punxsutawney’s Groundhog Day dates back to 1887. Since February 2 falls on a weekend this year, record crowds are expected to visit Gobbler’s Knob.

In addition to live-streaming the event, the Pennsylvania Tourism Office has again teamed up with Foursquare to offer a special Groundhog Day badge. The first 500 Foursquare users to check in from Gobbler’s Knob on February 2 will receive a Groundhog Day-branded Slinky toy. The Slinky was declared the official toy of Pennsylvania in 2001.

Last year, Phil predicted six more weeks of winter, as is usually the case. Still, there is always hope that the groundhog will predict an early spring, and that the prediction will happen to be correct.

For those who prefer to sleep in on their Saturdays, the movie Groundhog Day is currently streaming via Netflix Watch Instantly. It is, in every way, more entertaining than one of the real predictions. As proof, last year’s festivities (which consist largely of men in top hats making a spectacle of a terrified rodent) can be seen below.

Analyst firm ABI Research this week revealed its prediction that, worldwide, 145 million tablet devices will ship in 2013. It makes its prediction based on the number of new entrants in to the mobile market, the rising number of less expensive mobile devices, and increased mobile device adoption by businesses.

“The rate of innovation is slowing as tablet vendors augment their product portfolios to meet the needs of market audiences,” said Jeff Orr, senior practice director at ABI. “The late 2012 launches of Apple’s iPad mini and a variety of slates based on Intel architecture and new Windows operating systems will only begin to show their progress this year.”

ABI predicts that North America will receive over half of worldwide mobile device shipments. In addition, businesses are predicted to receive 19% of tablet shipments. Though ABI admits this could eat into PC sales, it also asserts that “the majority of new tablet opportunity comes from workers that have, until now, worked without the benefits of computing technologies.” The research firm also does not blame slowing eReader sales on the rise of tablet computing, and instead blames book publishers.

“The facts are that the U.S. market continues to dominate eReader shipments and an aging Baby Boomer population looking to replicate the print reading experience is a waning audience,” said Orr. “If other world regions do not successfully organize digital publishing markets, the dedicated eReader market will go away without regard for adoption of tablets and other mobile devices.”

“The mobile advertising market took off even faster than we expected due to an increased uptake in smartphones and tablets, as well as the merger of consumer behaviors on computers and mobile devices,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. “Growth in mobile advertising comes in part at the expense of print formats, especially local newspapers, which currently face much lower ad yields as a result of mobile publishing initiatives.”

Japan and South Korea, with their large mobile adoption rate, currently have a lead in mobile advertising. Gartner predicts, however, that China and India will increasingly drive mobile ad growth. Also, as mobile ads become more integrated into large ad campaigns, it is predicted that the U.S. and Europe will catch up to Asia by shifting ad spending away from print and radio.

“Smartphones and media tablets extend the addressable market for mobile advertising in more and more geographies as an increasing population of users spends an increasing share of its time with these devices,” said Andrew Frank, research vice president at Gartner. “This market will therefore become easier to segment and target, driving the growth of mobile advertising spend for brands and advertisers. Mobile advertising should be integrated into advertisers’ overall marketing campaigns in order to connect with their audience in very specific, actionable ways through their smartphones and/or tablets.”

Gartner warns, though, that ad inventory is growing significantly faster than advertisers can shift their spending. The analyst firm compares “paid discovery” advertising by app makers to early web advertising, and states that it creates “an inflated picture of revenue that may ultimately prove to be a bubble.”

“Some correction in the growth rate must occur before demand from brand and local advertisers catches up with supply, and more sustainable economics support a faster growth rate commensurate with consumer adoption,” said Baghdassarian.

While manufacturers will be excited enough about the new technology to increase production, it is not predicted that consumer demand will rise at the same rate. Gartner’s new report suggests that manufacturers will have to offer “compelling reasons” for consumers to choose their brand.

“In the end, the choice may be all about the extra content that one TV brand offers over another,” said Paul O’Donovan, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Consumers will be asking questions such as, which Internet TV services can the TV access? Are these the sites I think are valuable? Can I use my smartphone or tablet with this TV? It is critical for the TV industry during this global economic downturn and decline in consumer confidence levels, to sustain sales and maintain or grow market share – especially in emerging markets. This is difficult when demand has slowed, so the extra functionality offered by smart TVs becomes the product differentiator – if prices are already competitive and all other variables are equal between brands.”

These predictions follow an entire year of rumors that tech’s biggest brand, Apple, will be entering the flat-panel TV with an iOS-based HDTV. The rumors have persisted through reports that manufacturing troubles and cable company stonewalling have delayed the release of the device.

If the cable industry continues to overvalue its content and delay the merger of computers and television, the television industry might not have the luxury of an Apple-led, iTunes-like push into a new business model. With YouTube channels now reaching subscriber numbers in the millions, traditional networks may end up regretting their stubbornness when most customers have “smart” TVs in 2016.

The algorithm is claimed to predict with 95% accuracy the topics that will show up on Twitter’s trending topics list. It can make these predictions an average of an hour and a half before Twitter lists the topic as a trend, and can sometimes predict trends as much as four or five hours in advance.

Devavrat Shah, associate professor in the electrical engineering and computer science department at MIT, and MIT graduate student Stanislav Nikolov will present the algorithm at the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Information and Decision in Social Networks in November.

Shah stated that the algorithm is a nonparametric machine-learning algorithm, meaning it makes no assumptions about the shape of patterns. It compares changes over time in the number of tweets about a new topic to the changes over time seen in every sample in the training set. Also, training set samples with statistics similar to the new topic are more heavily weighted when determining a prediction. Shah compared it to voting, where each sample gets a vote, but some votes count more than others.

This method is different from the standard approach to machine learning, where researchers create a model of the pattern whose specifics need to be inferred. In theory, the new approach could apply to any quantity that varies over time (including the stock market), given the right subset of training data.

For Shah and Nikolov’s initial experiments, they used data from 200 Twitter topics that were listed as trends and 200 that were not. “The training sets are very small, but we still get strong results,” said Shah. In addition to the algorithm’s 95% prediction rate, it also had only a 4% false-positive rate.

The accuracy of the system can increase with additional training sets, but the computing costs will also increase. However, Shah revealed that the algorithm has been designed to execute across separate machines, such as web servers. “It is perfectly suited to the modern computational framework,” said Shah.

“It’s very creative to use the data itself to find out what trends look like,” said Ashish Goel, associate professor of management science at Stanford University and a member of Twitter’s technical advisory board. “It’s quite creative and quite timely and hopefully quite useful.

“People go to social-media sites to find out what’s happening now. So in that sense, speeding up the process is something that is very useful.”

(Image courtesy MIT)

Speaking to Business Insider, Apple analyst Gene Munster said that it’s now a matter of when, and not if, when it comes to Apple TV. That seems to jive with rumors that Foxconn has begun production on an Apple TV. What would an Apple TV consist of though? Munster seems to have an idea.

The biggest change that Apple will bring to television according to Munster is the unbundling of channels. He feels that Apple will work with studios and allow consumers to only pay for channels that they want instead of paying a monthly fee for only three channels that they watch regularly. He also feels that Apple will bring DVR functionality that is similar to what DISH Network now offers with its Hopper DVR. Unfortunately, DISH is now on the end of a lawsuit from multiple networks claiming that skipping commercials is akin to theft. Apple may be able to throw its considerable weight against these networks and force them to adapt to new technologies.

As for the other features, Munster feels that Apple will focus on interface, apps and design for the new TV. The interface will include Siri and compatibility with third-party devices. He also feels that Apple will include integration with content guides. As for apps, Apple will no doubt include its App Store on the TV allowing developers to create apps and games for the device. iOS already has a massive amount of developers making games for the platform so the Apple TV could be Apple’s foray into the console market. As for design, he says that the TV will look like every other Apple device including aluminum casing and an LCD screen to avoid the cost of OLED screens.

Speaking of cost, Munster estimates the cost to be at around $1,500 to $2,000. He says the cost will reflect the fact that consumers are getting a TV, set top box, gaming console and blu-ray player all in one box. I would argue that the cost would be more around the $2,000 range, but that’s just because Apple tends to charge more than the average manufacturer for their products. Regardless, it would become an instant hit and sell millions in a mere few days. Apple is slowly taking over the world and the TV is next, folks.

This year, they look at things like mind-reading, spam, and sustainable energy. Let’s take a look into the future, according to IBM.

1. People will power their houses with energy that they create themselves.  True renewable energy will become the norm, allowing people to power their homes and work places with simple movement – like the turning of the spokes on a bicycle or the running of water through pipes.
2. No more passwords.  Biometric tools like retina scanners and voice recognition will totally replace traditional passwords, and you’ll be able to use these login devices at places like the ATM machine.
3. Your devices will read your mind.  In the next 5 years, scientists will have discovered a way to link your mind to you devices so that you can just think about calling someone and it will happen.  Further down the road, people might just be able to simply think about what they want to say and have it typed out for them on their computers.
4. Mobile Technology will help close the digital divide.  They predict that within 5 years, 80% of the global population will own a mobile device.  communities all over the world will be able to use this technology to access mobile commerce programs and virtual health care.
5. Spam will become personal.  “Junk mail will become priority mail. In five years, unsolicited advertisements may feel so personalized and relevant it may seem spam is dead.”

Not all of the past IBM predictions have come to pass. For instance, we don’t quite have mind reading mobile phones yet (predicted back in 2006) and we haven’t been able to eradicate the “forgetting” part of aging (predicted in 2008). But some of the predictions have definitely come true.

Two of the first year’s predictions, for instance, have pretty much come true:

We will be able to access healthcare remotely from just about anywhere in the world. Today, through telemedicine, patients can connect with physicians or specialists from just about anywhere via inexpensive computers and broadband networks. Doctors can view x-rays and other diagnostic imagery from thousands of miles away.

Technologies the size of a few atoms will address areas of environmental importance. Nanotechnology is now used in countless fields and industries, including agriculture, biotechnology and sensor networks, enabling us to understand and interact with the natural environment like never before.

Plus, they predicted that users would soon talk to the web, and the web would talk back. Sounds a little bit like Siri and other voice assistants, no?

Which of IBM’s 2011 predictions do you see coming true in the next 5 years? Which ones seem just a little too ambitious? Let us know in the comments.

Looking back at 2011

The turmoil that Clay was referring to was largely because of Google’s Panda update. As WebProNews previously reported, Google rolled out its Panda update in an effort to target low quality sites across the Web. The impact of it, however, was extremely significant. Many people, such as Dani Horowitz of DaniWeb, saw their site drop dramatically and had no idea why.

“We’ve determined, or at least convinced ourselves, that linking, the quality of your inbound link networking, is also part of the quality of your site certainly at a trust level,” said Clay. “Trust scores and components associated with the quality of how your site connects to everybody is part of the factor to determine whether or not you are a site worthy of ranking.”

He went on to say that Panda was “disruptive” but that he thought, in the end, that it had helped Google’s search results.

“Overall, I think that the results have improved,” he said.

Google also released a “Freshness” update not long ago that was intended to index fresher content more quickly. From Clay’s perspective, this update really only impacts news content. Fortunately, most people seem to be hopeful about it.

Another move, however, that Google made that did and will continue to have an impact on the search industry was Google’s move to encrypt search. If you remember, Google said it would begin encrypting logged-in searches that users do by default when they are logged into Google.com. For SEOs, this means that they will not receive referral data from the websites consumers click on from Google search results.

Although Google claimed the move was done to protect user privacy, most SEOs – Clay included – aren’t buying into this theory, mostly because the move did not impact advertisers.

“I really think that the intent there was more to allow Google to see what we are searching for themselves because they are now in the stream,” said Clay. “It’s sort of not a universal privacy issue [because] people don’t know, many times, that it’s an ad.”

While Google announcements have primarily dominated the 2011 recap thus far, the yearly events do go beyond the search giant. For starters, social media is bleeding over much more into search. Clay told us that social media, and especially Twitter, has changed how people find sites.

In other words, social media is becoming a replacement for the browser. Searchers look to their social networks for recommendations and reviews before they visit the brand sites. Clay said that this shift in behavior is still resulting in conversions even though the traffic is down.

Speaking of social and search, Google’s release of its own social network Google+ was another significant move during the year. Clay told us that it doesn’t have a big impact on search at this point, but he suspects it will.

In terms of the other search engines, Clay said that Bing has held its own during the year. Microsoft and Yahoo collectively appear to be growing in search share, but Clay said he thinks the reason is because Ask and AOL have lost some.

Looking ahead to 2012

Going forward into 2012, Clay has several predictions. For starters, he believes that Google Panda will continue. In fact, he said that the image should be changed to a polar bear instead of a panda because it would get meaner and more aggressive.

“Google is in the business of making money,” he said. “Everybody needs to recognize that Google is a money generator.”

For this reason, he believes that Google will also integrate Google+ into search in 2012. A few years ago, Google went from a “one size fits all” approach with search to personalized search results. In order to make these results geared more toward individuals instead of groups of people, Clay explained that Google+ would give the search giant this ability.

“The best way to get your history is to just watch you and, I think, Google+ is that tool,” he said.

“It is entirely within reason for Google, every time you login to Google+, for them to know where you are,” he added.

As far as the other search engines go, Clay told us that Bing has good technology and that it would grow, especially in light of its partnerships with both Facebook and Mozilla.

While some have already written Yahoo out of the search market, Clay said that Yahoo would remain a leader in the space. According to him, it’s out of the spidering business but not the search or algorithm business.

“It’s kind of hard to criticize a company that only did a billion dollars in business,” he pointed out.

In addition, Clay said that local search would continue to grow in 2012. Due to this growth, he thinks the search engines will begin to monetize it through a concept called local paid inclusion. He said it would be similar to Yahoo’s Search Submit Pro and that the companies would pay to get included in the top of the search results.

Clay thinks the premium listing will have a call tracking system associated with it that would work like PPC ads work. For instance, if the number is clicked, the company pays the search engine. Based on past trends, he believes that Bing and Yahoo will offer this service before Google. He said that Google typically watches services from other companies and then develops their own version of it.

Clay said we could expect this element as soon as January and believes so strongly in the concept that Bruce Clay Inc. is already preparing to offer services in this area.

According to Clay’s predictions for 2012, the year looks to be just as interesting as 2011. Do you agree?

What do you think the search industry will hold for 2012? Will it be as “disruptive” as 2011? Please comment.

Although its IPO is reportedly back on track, a sense of uncertainty is starting to grow in regards to daily deals.

Is the phenomenon of daily deals going away? What do you think?

While there are people who would argue both sides of the future of daily deals’ dispute, the truth is, it’s really hard to say at this point. There have, however, been people who have made predictions about them including Mary Song, the CEO of travel discount site Yuupon.

Just a few months ago, she shared these predictions:

1. Facebook Deals will not be a major contender as is.

2. The daily deals space will mature and the flexibility that merchants may see today will disappear or become commoditized. Why? Daily deals / flash deals are still in infancy and a lot of trial and error/learning is still taking place. As the space matures a lot of this will be figured out and will become much more cookie cutter. This works, this doesn’t, want to run a deal? Here are the parameters The early adopters will get to play a role in shaping how flash deals operate.

3. Major shift to mobile delivery and fulfillment – where we’ll no longer need to use paper vouchers. Why? Let’s face it, printing a paper voucher and bringing it with you seems so 1990, the larger sites already offer some mobile delivery and fulfillment – expect to see major developments on the mobile front. Instant and Now are two examples.

4. More partnerships between players – Ebay is already in the daily deal space, and with their acquisition of Where, they made a strong move into the mobile hyperlocal space; however they are going to make a major move into the local deals space with their acquisition of Magento ecommerce software. We may see some additional acquisitions from Ebay.

5. Groupon Getaways/Expedia is not a slam dunk but does validate the travel voucher model. Existing issues between OTAs, bait and switch with deal pricing, etc may stand in the way of being the dominant player in the travel deal vertical.

6. Multiple players will exist and thrive in flash travel deal vertical – possibly as many as ten.

If you’re at all familiar with the space, you know that some of these have already come true. For example, Facebook, just 4 months after it entered the daily deal space, announced that it would be discontinuing its deals’ product. Song told us that she believed this would happen because Facebook did not effectively position its product. It was located in a place that most users would not visit regularly, and therefore, could not get very much traction.

She also told us that Facebook did not have a marketplace for deals. As she explained, most people don’t get on Facebook to make purchases, and those that do, aren’t typically repeat buyers. She thinks that both of these reasons played a big role in Facebook shuttering its product.

Facebook did say that it would be keeping its check-in deals, and Song believes they have potential. She said that merchants could use them to build loyalty programs and to drive revenue.

Another one of her predictions that we’re already seeing is the shift to mobile vouchers. Song said this was “bound to happen” with the increased use and convenience of smartphones.

Although the others have not come true yet, she did offer some further insight into the overall space. She told us that even though Groupon is the leader, she could see LivingSocial overtaking it. According to her, LivingSocial could actually be fine with its 2nd place position.

“Groupon is sort of paving the way, making mistakes, and LivingSocial is following behind learning from those mistakes and not making the same ones,” she said.

Song went on to say that she thinks that Google will be successful in the market because of its already broad reach.

“My prediction is that they won’t be as successful as LivingSocial or Groupon,” she pointed out.

Specifically, she believes that Google will be 1 of the top 3 daily deal providers but said that it wouldn’t hold positions 1 or 2.

In terms of the sustainability of daily deal services, Song told us that the market would continue to grow but that the number of providers would be greatly reduced.

“The market will sustain itself,” she said. “I don’t think the number of players that are considered daily deals’ sites will continue to exist.”

At this point, there well over 500 deals’ services, but she said that they are growing as individual services very slowly. As a result, she believes that these sites will be greatly reduced by 2012. Some sites will be merged or acquired, and others will simply have to shut down.

“It’s really easy to get into the daily deals’ market… but it’s not easy to run a daily deals’ site,” she added.

What’s your prediction for the overall daily deal industry and also the individual deal providers?