Economists say the recession ended in June, 2009, but for many of us, it’s hard to tell the difference. Unemployment remains high and the economy is growing slowly.

This month on “The Digital Future,” Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson and KPLU’s Dave Meyer look at the bright spot of the economy:  the technology sector.

Listen here

1. The Smartphone Market Breaks in Two: Secure / enterprise, vs. consumer / entertainment.
   • Android dominates – and balkanizes – the consumer Smartphone Market, with Apple close behind offering its Monolithic Operations.
   • RIM and XX dominate the Enterprise. XX should be Microsoft, but Apple gets it.
2. Carriers Grab Power: Google has interrupted a transition of power from Pipes to Boxes. Android gives carriers power, while the iOS takes it away. Whose walled garden do you prefer? Pray for Apple, if you are a user.
3. iTunes Seeds Its Own Competition: More real distribution competitors grow and prosper. Consumers want choice. This is a major business opportunity, on a global scale.
4. The Micro-App Ecosphere Hits a Money Wall: Prices quickly escalate, and suddenly there are two types of micro apps companies: big ones that charge and survive, and cute little ones that don’t.
5. Google Loses Its Way, failing to answer the critical question: “What Business Am I In?” even as Android, Google Phone, and e-ditions prosper (mostly without revenues). The company will be perceived as confused and unable to develop or support long-term strategy. Is this death by a thousand profitless successes?
6. The Year of the Electric Car, Part II: Real Production Numbers, Real Sales Numbers, Real Charging Stations Popping Up Like Weeds. Cars regain technology interest as a technology platform, fueled by burgeoning global sales growth, new nationalist entries, and all-electric models.
7. SNS CarryAlongs Remain the Fastest-Growing Segment in Computer Sales: We will see LOTS of new (9” x 7”) pads this year.
8. Data Matters: Oracle, the world’s largest database company, Takes Off, and emerges as a global platform. Competitor SAP suffers. The Larry Ellison/Mark Hurd team becomes as legendary as Gates and Shirley once were, and for the same reason: the ideal match of tech visionary with operating maven.
9. NetTV Is In, Cable Is Out: Penetration of IPTV use in the U.S. reaches 40%+. This marks a revolution in mass media. Cable and satellite suffer, and are wrong about customers not “cutting the cord.” Netflix benefits, and dominates the IPTV space, creating a breakout play for an already-amazing storybook company. Carriers (and countries) not providing real broadband suffer competitively. Old content players realize it is Dominate or Die in the new IP distribution world. New channels, and definitions of channels, abound.
10. E-books Go Mainstream: While paper book sales remain healthy, e-book fractional share of all book sales goes ballistic. E-reading becomes as common as eating with a spoon. U.S. wholesale e-book sales should meet or exceed $160MM per quarter during 2011. Compound Annual Growth Rates will remain over 140%.

Read more detail on these and other predictions for 2011
(SNS Subscriber login required)

Also, from KPLU Radio and NPR:

Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson shares his New Year’s predictions with KPLU’s Dave Meyer.

Listen here

]]> http://www.tapsns.com/blog/index.php/2010/12/sns-predictions-for-2011/feed/ 0 http://www.tapsns.com/blog/index.php/2010/09/kplu-radio-content-without-profit/ http://www.tapsns.com/blog/index.php/2010/09/kplu-radio-content-without-profit/#comments Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:00:15 +0000 SNS http://www.tapsns.com/blog/?p=1133 From NPR and KPLU Radio:

The dotcom bubble burst a decade ago. Could it happen again? Strategic News Service Publisher Mark Anderson is noticing some familiar trends. He spoke with KPLU’s Dave Meyer.

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Are we headed for a double-dip recession? Strategic News Service publisher Mark Anderson doesn’t think so. He tells KPLU’s Dave Meyer that the technology sector is moving forward while the rest of the economy lags behind.

Listen Here

Extract:

For me the basic dynamic of the mortgage bubble is some Ivy League dickwad hawking a billion dollars of securitized subprime mortgages to a pension fund, and then Hobie-sailing off into the sunset with a bonus after they all blow up. Of course my seeing it that way might have a lot to do with my own personal psychological prejudices, and I get that some other person with different hangups might choose to focus on Barney Frank deciding to “roll the dice on home ownership” with the GSEs…

This GSE story is a big one, but if it gets used as a path back to a “The Market Reacted Rationally” version of history, we’re screwed. It has to be looked at as an important part of a diabolical whole, a symbiotic scheme in which the banks and the state were irreversibly intertwined in an enterprise that on both sides was never about market economics, but crime. Because otherwise… the diversionary notion that one side or the other is wholly to blame is part of what makes the whole scam possible…“

Or perhaps the dysfunctional government article referred to in my previous post is a deliberate smokescreen?

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2010/01/class-warfare.html

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/01/04/fannie-freddie-and-the-new-red-and-blue/#

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/origins-american-kleptocracy

More comment:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/01/limiting-the-destruction-wrought-by-irrational-exuberance-in-a-one-party-state.html

But there’s a price we all will pay If politicians won’t display A little courage and crack down Upon these unsafe, grasping clowns: Another bomb is being built, By bankers with no sense of guilt.

http://www​.ft.com/cm​s/s/0/76d4​eabc-f41a-​11de-ac55-​00144feab4​9a.html

Expect main street to follow this exemplary model?  Will bad companies will be lumped together to form TBTF entities that will get bailed out by their governments?  Will the MSM even notice?

KPLU’s technology commentator, Mark Anderson [of Strategic News Service], has just returned from Down Under, where he took part in the Australian American Leadership Dialogue, and met with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Mark tells KPLU’s Dave Meyer that Australia’s economy is healthy, and the country is about to pull ahead of the US on the Internet.

Listen Now!

On this month’s Future in Review with Mark Anderson [of Strategic News Service], Mark predicts the technology sector will recover before the rest of the economy does. He tells KPLU’s Dave Meyer to keep an eye on computer chip sales.

Listen Now!

We have likely avoided global economic oblivion.  The Republicans, who are largely at fault for this horrible experience, have been incessantly whining about spending, self-dealing, and anything else their focus groups can come up with: how truly ignorant, and dangerous to the world.

We, the world, owe a debt of gratitude: first, to Ben Bernanke, who came in modestly, faced a completely frightening task, and did it well, while ignoring the many partisan voices that had no backing in intelligence or data.

Second, to Hank Paulson, who also was and remains a subject of criticism, for many imagined wrongs, while he, at the time, was the only officer awake on deck.  Imagine having been Paulson, surrounded by economic idiots like Bush and Cheney, and staring over the edge into what not only seemed like, but really was, the Abyss.  Thank you, Hank, for scaring DC just enough to get their jowls out of the troughs and do some meaningful things to avoid disaster, without scaring the world so much that the sky fell in.

Even more to the point, we have Barack Obama, and his hand-picked team of professionals, who since the early days have quietly, every morning, looked into that same Abyss, and reduced its depth by a few miles.  No one is getting any thanks for this, so I would like to go on record for appreciating the difficulties, intellectual, emotional and political, that these chosen financial professionals are experiencing dailly, and conquering as they go.

So that is the Good News: by accident, we had an expert in place in a Bush administration riddled with amateurs.  And we chose Obama, who did what we hoped, and picked the best people in the country to take the wheel.

The Bad News: it isn’t over.  We’re about at the half-way point now.  We are not going to repeat the Great Depression, I think, and that is great, but this is the moment of second-greatest danger, as everyone assumes we’re OK, when we are not there yet.  What I mean by this: there remain plenty of actors on Wall Street who were doing intellectually dishonest things to “make money” without creating value, and who are ready tonight to go right back at it, hammer and tongs, without a second thought.  Wow!  Really?

One example of this is in the oil pricing story, where the same schemers are now back again, driving up prices without a thought: why should they care if their personal antics, worth a few bucks in income, put a heavy tax on the global economy?  They just don’t get it.  Since they don’t, I hope someone in Washington will, and will decide that price manipulation of energy is a federal felony worth prison time.  More to the point, that they will seek out such miscreants and put these white collar criminals behind bars for a very, very long time.

Given that the worst is over, but the battle is not, now is a good time for our subscribers, members and blog readers to be vigilant, careful, and not to act as though risks are now history.  Plenty of small banks will fail in the next year (watch out, Georgia); California will likely go bankrupt in some form within 90-120 days.  More people will lose their jobs, and retail in the U.S., our largest economic input historically, will be in the gutter. 

But for those who are careful and paying attention, there are already opportunities, globally and locally, in U.S. real estate, in commodities (copper in China, anyone?), in large scale opportunities in alternative and clean energy.  The world is changing in fundamental ways, and that is always the best time to make money.

So, again: Thank you, Hank, Ben, Barack, and Tim.  The world owes everything to you, after we twice ran the Monkey in the Cockpit test. 

Whatever the angry men on radio and TV are shouting out this week, you saved us from that darkness over the edge that Hank saw the weekend after Lehman failed. 

For those who are serious about making money, there are today more ways of doing so than there have been for many years, and these are real, rather than fraudulent.  And for those who are serious about world affairs, we are back in adult, professional hands, and none to soon.  Now we just have to be very, very careful.