Matt Charleton

This morning I was lucky enough to attend the Deloitte TMT Predictions event at the Terminal City Club in Vancouver. The event paid off big, with Duncan Stewart of Deloitte (link) very effectively illustrating the top 10 predictions in media, tech and telecomm for 2010, based on thousands of interviews, surveys and meticulous research.

Deloitte’s prediction track record speaks for itself. According to Duncan, Deloitte “bats a .656…” when it comes to their forecasts, which is “better than Ted Williams.” Though it might seem like a C+, Deloitte’s claims, which sometimes counter popular opinion, have big implications in industry. In 2009, they accurately predicted the massive boom of 3D cinema (though they don’t foresee growth in 3D TV any time soon) and the accelerating growth of netbooks. Duncan was also to admit their foibles, such as the flop of WiFi radio.

A full report of the predictions, podcasts and other content is available through the site (link), with the Montreal event hosted on uStream (link). For now, I’ll touch upon some of the key predictions that piqued my interest and how they might translate to development of media.

1.)    ‘eReaders fill a niche, but eBooks fly off the (virtual) shelves’: While tech like the Amazon Kindle boasts enhanced dpi and readability, the technical limitations must be addressed to expand the market. Expect printed media to face continual challenges as eBooks readership expands.

2.)    ‘Smaller than a netbook and bigger than a smartphone – net tablets arrive’: Jumping right into the ubiquitous iPad discussion, Deloitte predicts sales in the 10s of millions, as opposed to the average street estimate of 5 million. Despite criticisms of the iPad just being a larger smart phone, Deloitte views this as the hardware’s greatest attribute. The level of interactivity with media through this technology is staggering – as shown in the Sports Illustrated Tablet Demo (link)

3.)    ‘Paying for what we eat: carriers change data pricing and make regulators happy’: Established players in the North American telecomm industry will move away from the “all you can eat” or unlimited data plans, favouring payment buckets, or a tiered usage system. New players in the Canadian market, such as Wind Mobile (link), however, will have the capacity to offer unlimited data packages – price wars for new players doesn’t work, so instead they’ll wage a ‘data war’.

4.)    ‘The shift to online advertising: more selective, but the trend continues’: For companies, online advertising simple has more bang for their buck (10 times better payoff). Deloitte expects a 50% growth in online media expenditure by the end of 2011, growing to 15% of total advertising expenditure.

This avenue presents innovative disruption to the industry, which poses a threat to traditional media by 1) stealing market share and 2) causing price deflation across all media (think mp3’s and the music industry). Not only will their piece of the pie get smaller, but the pie itself will shrink.With bold moves into online marketing, such as Pepsi forgoing the traditional Superbowl advertisements in favour of internet advertising, it’s clear to see this trend in action.

At end the event, I spoke with Duncan about the future of social media. While he believes there is massive potential for growth, he currently sees many companies focusing on the implications the technology has for internal communications, such as Yammer. The hurdle social media advertising lies in accurate and efficient methods of analysing campaigns. Currently many projects split their cost 50/50 between content development and monitoring; this figure needs to be closer to 90/10 before these campaigns are truly effective.

Let’s see if Deloitte can bump up that C+ average this year… time will tell.