I am not sure how Transparent Content Management did in 2012. I am also not sure if any thing big really happened this year in Content Management, rebounding on @piewords prediction post!

Anyhow here we go for a round of predictions for the year to come, going beyond Content Management! I decided on ten of these, a good number, faster to read, faster to write.

1: ‘No Empty Enterprise Social Networks’

There will be a wave of customers with empty ‘Enterprise Social Networks’. Just like what happened ten years ago with portals, enterprises will have a hard time getting employees to use these tools when they are just an internal replica of the public social network. Why would people go there when they can go on the public ones?

Just like Plumtree who ten years ago launched  a “No Empty Portal” campaign, some vendors will focus their marketing on trying to have their customers using the software to deliver on the promises of the social enterprise… but will fail.

In the meantime, more creative vendors who have the feel for a good mix of social features with more Enterprise functionalities, without simply cloning what’s happening on the public side, will really strengthen their position on the market.

2: ASP back in business

Fifteen good years after its creation, the ASP acronym will make its comeback. “Application Service Provider” is actually very explicit and people will use it to escape the loud and confusing terminology revolving around cloud computing. ASP will be big in 2013!

3: “Mobile First” Is Over

The expression’s sun will set. Don’t use it in 2013 or you will be perceived as old-fashioned. ‘Mobile’ doesn’t mean much anyway; most of the devices are now mobile but still very different! For instance, the iPad screen is much closer to my grandma’s desktop (actually it is way bigger in number of pixels…) than to a mobile phone. “Mobile first” will be abandoned for things like “Touchscreen First” or “All Screens First” or something of the sort.

4: e-Commerce Will Get Bigger Than Ever Thanks to Real Point of Sales

This prediction can almost be used every year but it will keep happening, yes, e-commerce will keep booming. Beyond traditional 100% electronic commerce, new hybrid shopping experiences will be developed more and more and they will be a major driver for e-commerce: car services ordered and paid online, in-shop buying but online paying, local food delivery and pick-up on the mobile device… This also means it will be more and more difficult to tell the difference between electronic and traditional commerce.

5: Big Data Reality Check

After serious buzz, people will want to understand what is behind Big Data and they will understand it is not a phenomena that touches everything and everyone, even if it is clearly a major disruption. Big Data will change over to more concrete technology topics, related to data manipulation and data analysis. “Big Data” will lose 30% of its popularity on Google search and the BD bubble will progressively decrease.

6: Marketing Automation Will Go to the Next Step

Marketing Automation is an amazingly promising set of technologies but it also has a hard time delivering on its supposedly very measurable promises.

In 2013, Marketing Automation will solve this by integrating more seamlessly other online marketing software. It will suffer from the move to mobile usage which makes it more difficult to track users. It will also suffer from some data privacy programs that will hurt some of the techniques they use.

Some vendors will stay on the side of the road when others will really understand this and reach success by shaping a new generation of Marketing Automation more focused on inbound marketing and self-service integration.

7: Amazon Will Finally Ship the Fridgdle

I don’t know if I will hate it or love it, but in 2013, the Fridgdle of Amazon will make its really successful debut. Fridgdle is the home device that probes what’s in your fridge and recommends grocery items. The Fridgdle, based on the same technical platform as the Kindle, will be a 7-ish inches tablet-like device that magnetically attaches to your fridge and comes with a Bluetooth-connected in-fridge camera to detect the level of stock. 2014 will be the year of mass production.

8: Brooklyn Will Get Its Flagship Tech Company

I have paid a lot of attention to the NYC tech landscape since I arrived in the area two years ago. Actually I find the tech community very vibrant, interesting and nice. I feel part of it and really enjoy it. I’ve been working in Manhattan and Brooklyn at different locations. I of course love Brooklyn but still, I must say that the community is huge but more made of individuals, agencies, consultants… it lacks a serious tech company or two. No real big name to raise to challenge the Manhattan players such as Stackoverflow, 10gen… and such. This will change in 2013 and it will not come from a startup but from a company moving to the east side of the river…

9: Open Source Will Keep Being Repositioned

Five years ago, being Open Source was a huge Marketing and Sales differentiator for vendors using this model; to the point that some vendors  decided to go Open Source only to surf that wave. As it has already been discussed in many places, Open Source will be less and less present in Marketing and Sales folk vocabulary. The number of mentions in business articles will seriously decrease. It will be mostly a technological thing, related to how software is developed and how it works with little impact on how it is sold. While this will hurt some Open Source vendors, it is I think a good move; it takes Open Source value back to where it should be, not a sales or marketing criteria but a best practice when it comes to developing software, a technological characteristic which results in quality and innovation more than in super low costs. I do expect this trend to be a good one, a sign of maturity for Open Source vendors doing it the right way.

10: Github Will Go Beyond Collaboration on Code, and Will Seriously Hit Atlassian’s Reign

Since Github got this massive $100M funding, we didn’t hear much about them, did we? We will soon see concrete results of this funding, which will go beyond Github’s usual territories. This will obviously be about collaboration and about building software and this will definitely tread on Atlassian’s territory. I can’t predict exactly what will happen, but certainly it will involve development process, allowing a lean and agile way to build software. Github will also explore continuous testing and building topics.

These are my quick 10 predictions for next year. I look forward to seeing what comes true, and how!

In the meantime, Happy New Year to all, Happy New Year New York and see you in 2013!