The Wooden Spoon goes to the New Year pundit who gets it most spectacularly wrong (a wooden spoon is a traditional prize in Britain for the team that comes last in a competition). 2008 was definitely a tough year to call with few pundits predicting a financial meltdown while most where over-optimistic in predicting things that failed to happen.

This year there are four runners-up for the title of worst pundit of 2008. They are Don Reisinger of CNET, Louis Gray of LouisGray.com, Business Week and Jim Cramer in New York Magazine.

Don Reisinger managed to get four out of his five predictions wrong, namely that DRM would end (still here), Google to take mobile by storm (not yet), the rise of IPTV (growing but hardly broken through) and that the Wii would fall flat on its face (it is currently outselling the PS3 and Xbox combined).

Louis Gray is another contender in the wooden spoon race with predictions that Google would beat Techmeme (not yet), Facebook buys Digg, eBay sells StumbleUpon, Twitter adds photos/videos, a major browser ships with Ad Block and that Robert Scoble leaves Fast Company. His solitary clear success was that video blogging would remain unprofitable.

2008 wasn’t a vintage year for Business Week either. While they predicted a crash for Web 2.0 and crude oil going through $100 they also predicted that airlines would consolidate, a back lash against the green movement, Bloomberg to run for president, Clinton to get the Democrat nomination, McCain to win and Apple to have a resounding success with Apple TV. Potentially a home run of inaccurate predictions.

Jim Cramer could be a category in himself. While he made some accurate predictions (Chrysler failure and bailout, Google continuing to dominate and New York Times dropping below $10) his depth on analysis seems to be that things will always continue in the direction they are travelling in (i.e. stock going up then it will go through the roof, stock headed down then the company will go bust). Using that analysis led him to predict Goldman hitting $300 (“an inevitability”, it ended the year at $89), Google to $1,000 (oops, it ended at $308) and oil to surge to $125 as we are running out (as it ended the year below $50, the Saudis must have found some more obviously).

However, none of these compare with noted futurologist and principal behind the Strategy News Service, Mark Anderson. Here are his predictions in full as reported by Information Week (with our scoring in bold):

1. Users revolt. “The desire to connect will run head into the desire to promote,” he said. “From Second Live rules to issues with privacy on Facebook to cell phone bills, users now have control.” Users, Anderson warned, want to connect and any interruptions in this process on the part of marketers or advertisers will be met with swift and harsh response on the part of all users.

This did happen in 2007 with, for example, user’s highly negative reaction to Facebook Beacon. However, potentially because companies had learned their lessons, it was not a headline issue in 2008.

2. No more walled gardens. “Net neutrality will prevail. The box guys — the Nokias, Apples, Microsofts, etc. — will prevail over the pipe guys (the carriers).”

No significant change here. The carriers remain with as tight a grip on the consumer as they did at the end of 2007. Notably, jail breaking of the first iPhone was a notable event (which allowed consumers to use it on other networks) however with the success of the app store the attraction of breaking the 3G iPhone was muted.

3. By expanding everywhere the Web will disappear. Users, Anderson said, “want the service, not the history.” Web audiences will begin to experience serious segmentation next year, as will online ad money. Much of the online ad dollars will flow to luxury products and to permission-based marketing schemes as advertisers leave interruption marketing behind.

Web seems to be still there and interruption marketing doesn’t seem to leaving the scene any time soon either. The mix of ad dollars hasn’t significantly shifted to luxury products and permission based marketing schemes.

4. High definition drives a reversal in U.S. bandwidth capacity. “Thanks to high def,” Anderson said, “consumers will demand more bandwidth.” As evidence he pointed out the success of Verizon (NYSE: VZ)’s new fiber strategy, and how hard is it for entrenched cable providers, like Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA), to fight against it.

Not really a prediction more a statement of a trend.

5. Countries will have to behave better and the fake Internet will collapse. This means that Web censorship will begin to go away. “Real Net access is on the path to becoming a basic human right.”

Not seen that one materialize. The Great Firewall of China is still intact, Australia now has one in the pipeline and now the UK is planning to much more closely monitor internet usage.

6. The world agrees that one-on-one training for children is inevitable. The world is about to rethink the future of education.

The world just about managed to agree that it was in danger of entering a global depression. There wasn’t even much agreement on climate change, trade or the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I guess the children will have to wait another year.

7. U.S. healthcare gets a proper diagnosis. Anderson said that the 2008 presidential election will force America to take notice of just how broken its healthcare system really is.

Probably a half point for this one. The problems of US healthcare system was extensively discussed during the Democrat primary however the financial crisis pushed it off the agenda of critical issues.

8. Small PCs break out as a category. The perpetual little engine that could, the Ultra Mobile PC, will finally come into its own in 2008. Anderson even predicts that Apple will make one, despite what some critics claim.

Again a half point on this one. Small PCs did break out as a category in 2008 but it was net books rather than Ultra Mobile PCs that form the category.

9. 2008 will be the year where LEDs become common for lighting. As evidence for this trend, Anderson pointed out that new Christmas lights this year are LEDs.

Again more of a statement of a trend rather than a prediction.

10. 2008 should be the first year when alternative energy cars go into production in the U.S. Anderson pointed out that Honda will deliver hydrogen-powered cars in California that will lease for around $600 a month. Tesla, the electric sports car maker, is also expected to ship product next year.

Alternative energy cars were already in production at the end of 2007. Honda did indeed deliver hydrogen-powered cars to California, five to be exact and even they were built in Japan. Tesla did ship its Model S electric sports cars in 2008 and by the end of the year managed to get the 100th out the door. A start no doubt, but 2008 was hardly the year of the alternative energy car.

With a grand total of one out of ten that makes Mark Andersen our worst pundit of 2008 and the inaugural recipient of the New Year pundit wooden spoon. Mark has quite an illustrious resume and claims a 93% accuracy rating. Who predicts that the wooden spoon will be added to his list of accomplishments?

Pundit Awards awards, predictions, pundits, wooden spoon

Click here for list of nominees.

It seems the rule for tech predictions is that anyone you thought might get acquired (Digg, Twitter, Tumblr, Six Apart etc) didn’t. ReadWriteWeb predicted a number of these start-ups would get acquired but they didn’t plus they thought Facebook user numbers would go into decline (not yet). John Battelle predicted a large amount of corporate activity such as aQauntive getting spun out, MySpace getting spun out and a battle for Facebook, all of which failed to occur (although he did spot that Facebook would struggle with social ads).

Christopher Null and Don Reisinger both incorrectly predicted that the Wii would run out of steam. Christopher Null followed that one up with predictions that the HD war would continue (victory to Blu-Ray) and that we’d finally upgrade to Vista (still holding out). However he also saw that the PS3 would remain in third place and that Google would fail to buy the 700MHz spectrum. Don Reisinger, on the other hand, enters the running for the wooden spoon with predictions that DRM would end (still here), Google to take mobile by storm (not yet) and the rise of IPTV (growing but hardly broken through).

Louis Gray is another contender in the wooden spoon race with predictions that Google would beat Techmeme (not yet), Facebook buys Digg, eBay sells StumbleUpon, Twitter adds photos/videos, a major browser ships with Ad Block and that Robert Scoble leaves Fast Company. His solitary clear success was that video blogging would remain unprofitable.

The winner of the tech category made 17 bold predictions for 2008. While he got a lot of them wrong like Google launching the GDrive, PS3 outselling the Xbox, Digg getting bought and Yahoo making a bid for Twitter, he got at least eight spot on. These were that there would be a battle to buy at least part of Yahoo, Blu Ray would defeat HD, that the Wii would continue to dominate, Flickr to intro video (but not compete with YouTube), Google Open Social to fail to excite, social aggregation to be huge (with FriendFeed continuing to grow and Facebook doing more aggregation this is at least half right), Microsoft starting to hype Windows 7 and NBC coming on to iTunes. In all an impressive performance. Congratulations to MG Siegler at Paris Lemon. An inscribed quaich is on its way to you now.

Pundit Awards awards, predictions, pundits, tech

Click here for the list of nominees.

If politics was difficult to call in 2008, then business was a disaster for most pundits. If just one of our pundits had informed his or her readers to hide their money under the mattress, then they would have easily scooped the prize. Unfortunately, it seems that many in the financial press view their job as selling stocks so the only way to predict is up.

Leading the charge, as ever, is Jim Cramer writing for New York Magazine. Goldman to $300 he breathlessly writes (it ended the year at $89), Google to $1,000 (oops, it ended at $308) and oil will surge to $125 as we are running out (as it ends the year below $50, the Saudis must have found some more obviously). However, Cramer didn’t get it all wrong as foresaw Chrysler failing and then getting a bailout from Congress and he also predicted that the New York Times would drop below $10.

Also managing to stumble on a few forecast cow pats were Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha. The Fool thought that Yahoo would finally start to get it right (put the dunce cap back on for that one) and Seeking Alpha thought Facebook would IPO (I guess that will happen just after they figure out how to make money). Seeking Alpha regains some credibility in predicting that Ford would sell Land Rover and Jaguar to Tata.

While the Fool and Seeking Alpha may have stumbled on the cow pats, Business Week dived into the dung heap. While they predicted a crash for Web 2.0 and crude oil going through $100 they also predicted that airlines would consolidate, a back lash against the green movement, Bloomberg to run for president, Clinton to get the Democrat nomination, McCain to win and Apple to have a resounding success with Apple TV. Potentially a home run of inaccurate predictions.

However, the winner of the business category predicted at least one banking bankruptcy in 2008, that the Dow Jones would drop to 11,500 by the summer (although he failed to predict the subsequent collapse), that the credit default swap market would blow up and called bullshit on the theory that emerging markets were decoupled from the US economy. Congratulations to Jon Markman of MSN Money for an impressive performance. An inscribed quaich is on its way to you now.

UPDATE: The Seeking Alpha article was actually from Investor Trip. Seeking Alpha just aggregated it.

Pundit Awards awards, business, predictions, pundits

Click here for the list of nominees.

Politics has proved to be a tough year on the pundits. Most expected a Democrat to take the White House but they thought the new President would be wearing a pantsuit rather than pants. USA Today called it right predicting President Obama but then immediately blotted their copy book by also predicting President Guiliani. The News & Observer called McCain as the Republican nominee but also called it for Romney and Guiliani. They didn’t manage to get much else right either.

The Economist also plumped for Clinton, predicted a crisis in Taiwan that failed to occur and also forecast that the US would avoid recession. To be fair, the Economist was in the mainstream when they predicted the US avoiding the recession and they did manage to divine that China would win the most Olympic gold medals. However, in all it was a distinctly below par year for them.

The winner of the category also predicted a Clinton win and a recession-free US. However, they did also point out that the Credit Crunch would continue moving into a second chapter, that Musharraf would lose power and that oil would break the $100 mark before dropping by the end of the year. That winner was the crack corp of pundits at the FT.  An inscribed quaich is on its way to them now.

Pundit Awards awards, politics, predictions, pundits

2008 has finally run its course and journalists and bloggers have now turned their eyes to making predictions about what 2009 will bring. However before they do there is the small matter of totting up the scores on how they performed in their 2008 predictions. The winner of each category will win an inscribed quaich to mark their achievement. Additionally, there is a wooden spoon for the pundit who gets it wrong in the most spectacular fashion. Full details of the competition are here.

Note, we have decided to drop the entertainment category. On reviewing the New Year predictions in that category we found it to be a mix of astrology, comedy and psycho babble. Additionally, it was almost universally wrong proving it is easier to predict the winner of the election than the outcome of Britney’s next misadventure.

Here are the list of winners:

Politics - Financial Times

Business - Jon Markman of MSN Money

Technology - MG Siegler of Paris Lemon

Sports - Christopher Clary of IHT

Wooden Spoon - Mark Andersen of Strategy News Service

Pundit Awards awards, New Year, Prediction, Pundit

As announced last week, News Pundits is running awards for the top pundits who made the most accurate 2008 predictions. For the remainder of this year we will be publishing a list of nominees for each category. If you want to nominate another pundit please do so by providing a link in the comments below.

The nominations so far for Business News Pundit 2008 are:

Business Week Staff - Business Week

James Cramer- New York Magazine

Rick Aristotle Munarriz - Motley Fool

Byron Wein - Bloomberg

Seeking Alpha

Small Cap Network

John Markman - MSN

Money Blue Book

UPDATE: The Seeking Alpha article is actually from Investor Trip. Seeking Alpha just aggregated it.

Pundit Awards awards, business, predictions, pundits

As announced last week, News Pundits is running awards for the top pundits who made the most accurate 2008 predictions. For the remainder of this year we will be publishing a list of nominees for each category. If you want to nominate another pundit please do so by providing a link in the comments below.

Below are the nominations for the politics category:

Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel - USA Today

Rob Christensen - The News & Observer

Daniel Franklin - The Economist

Radley Balko - Fox News

Editorial team - Financial Times

Ed Quillen - Denver Post

Claude Salhani - Middle East Times

As you can see not many called both the primaries and the presidential elections correctly.

Pundit Awards awards, politics, predictions, pundits

As announced last week, News Pundits is running awards for the top pundits who made the most accurate 2008 predictions. For the remainder of this year we will be publishing a list of nominees for each category. If you want to nominate another pundit please do so by providing a link in the comments below.

Below are the nominations for the tech category.

John Battelle - Search Blog

Allen Stern - CenterNetworks

Garett Rogers - ZDNet

Tim Bajarin - PC Mag

MG Siegler - ParisLemon

Martin Veitch - The Inquirer

Richard McManus - ReadWriteWeb

Marshall Kirkpatrick - ReadWriteWeb

Josh Catone - ReadWriteWeb

Emre Sokullu - ReadWriteWeb

Sean Amirati - ReadWriteWeb

Charles Knight - AltSearchEngines

Mark Anderson - reported in Information Week

Louis Gray - LoiusGray.com (Louis reviews his on predictions here)

Christopher Null - Yahoo Tech

Michael Malone - Silicon Insider

Don Reisinger - The Digital Home

Steven Fisher - Techno Sailor

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan - Hip Mojo

Nick Douglas - Valley Wag

Nancy Weil - PC World

Dion Hinchcliffe - Social Computing

As you can see it is a long list. There are some highly accurate unobvious predictions in there but there are also some stonking misses (e.g. End of DRM, WSJ to go free and Wii falls flat in its face etc). Competition for the wooden spoon could be tight.

Pundit Awards awards, predictions, pundits, tech