LOOKING BACK AT 2005 AND PREDICTIONS FOR 2006

As most people saunter back to their offices today with a few extra pounds and flashbacks to a lazy New Years Day, you can imagine the natural avoidance of being enthusiastic about work or charging off into those inspiring New Years resolutions. I can hear the groans and sighs of people throughout the globe with a handful of cheerful voices that really did get some rest over the holidays.

For me, the difficulty lies in trying to wipe my mind clean of the food I got to eat in Chicago... the land of artery clotting, heart-attack inducing food. Like someone suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, the echos in my head do not come close to the battlefields of war, but my mind is still filled with images of Buffalo Joe's wings, charred steaks, and Vienna Beef hotdogs that I cannot erase. The only thing I could erase over the past week was the sound of Christine's voice constantly telling me, "Stop eating... do not eat that!... Burnt food causes cancer... Chicken skin is BAD for you!"

"But it tastes sooo good..."

Anyway, I think Christine is happy that we're back home in a land of trail nuts and foo-foo salads. She also made some goals for 2006 for us. The obvious one is weight loss and health. Here's a list of my goals for 2006 (no predictions from me) :)

10) Write more columns for AlwaysOn and posts at Junto Boyz
9) Decrease my float time of 2 hrs to 45 minutes by dropping from 220lbs to 200lbs
8) Become a decent surfer
7) Learn to keep quiet and say, "Yes, dear" more often
6) Hug a Democratic at least once a month and say, "Your party can be a party of ideas too"
5) Regain lost volleyball skills (outside of dropping weight and gaining a vertical)
4) More faithful to God
3) Build a kickass, influential, and fun company
2) Be a loving, joyful and supportive husband
1) Eat the 64oz porterhouse at Chicago Chop House


At AlwaysOn, Jamis MacNiven, owner of Buck's of Woodside (famous VC watering hole), has his closing notes on 2005, "BitTorrent, Google Video, and Ray Kurzweil's Dreamscape"

As for 2006 predictions, here are a few floating around in the blogosphere:

John Battelle's predictions are here.

Pat McCarthy's "Top 10 Web Predictions for 2006":
1. RSS will become two-way with the help of Simple Sharing Extensions from Microsoft.
2. Social news site Digg will expand into other content areas and media types and then will be acquired.
3. Web 2.0 will be looked down upon as a buzzword, and it’s usage will drop off dramatically.
4. Face-recognition photo application Riya will be acquired by a major player.
5. Some ecommerce shopping applications using the more recent advancements in social web technologies will be developed and will succeed.
6. Google Analytics will again drop the hammer on the web analytics industry.
7. A forward thinking company will build technology to support transparency, efficiency, and relationships in the online advertising business.
8. Microsoft will launch a contextual advertising network that will either be huge, or fail miserably.
9. Two to three new startups will be so cool and successful they will make the heroes of 2005 like Flickr and del.icio.us seem small and insignificant.
10. The venture capital investments and acquisition bubble will heat up even more, then deflate in the 2nd half of 2006 after a number of companies fail.. (full post)

Kevin Burton's predictions here.

Randy Charles's predictions here.

ThinkEquity's Michael Moe has his view on the financial markets in 2006 here.

Bill Bishop's "Predictions for the Chinese Internet in 2006" here.

UPDATE: Peter Caputa has a great post for his predictions in 2006. This is how a prediction post should be written.