Will Google's 12 Crazy Predictions Come True?

Google's head of mobile sales and strategy, Jason Spero, has several predictions for 2012. But are they crazy, accurate, or so far off target that there's no way they could be true? Spero's predictions (via TechCrunch) are as follows:

1. “More than 1 billion people will use mobile devices as their primary internet access point.”
2. “There will be 10 days where >50% of trending search terms will be on mobile.”
3. “Mobile's role in driving people into stores will be proven and it will blow us away.”
4. “‘Mobile driven spend' will emerge as a big category.”
5. “Smartphones will prove exceptional at driving a new consumer behavior.”
6. “Tablets will take their place as the 4th screen.”
7. “New industry standards will make mobile display easy to run.”
8. “Five new, mobile first companies will reach the Angry Birds level of success.”
9. “The ROI on mobile and tablet advertising will increase as a result of the unmatched relevance of proximity.”
10. “The intersection of mobile and social will spark a dramatic new form of engaging consumers.”
11. “80% of the largest 2,000 websites globally will have an HTML5 site.”
12. “One million small businesses globally will build a mobile website.”

Let's start by dissecting the initial claim that more than one billion people will use mobile devices as their primary Internet access point. Spero makes this claim without providing any context whatsoever, such as the total number of people that already use a mobile device as their primary Internet access point, or the reasons why his predicted number could be achieved. Last July, Ars Technica reported that 28% of U.S. smartphone owners use them as their “primary” Internet connection. That number could have easily grown over the remaining months of the year as people bought up new Samsung phones, as well as the iPhone 4S. But even if half of U.S. smartphone users abandoned their PCs for a mobile web experience, the total number would not approach one billion people. Can smartphone and tablet manufacturers manage to sell enough devices worldwide to make up the difference? Spero seems to think so. But again, he did not provide any details beyond one very broad prediction – a prediction that will likely be proven or disproven with surveys and other voluntary response data. Spero's second prediction seems to be fairly plausible. There's no reason why mobile searches won't represent more than 50% of the trending search terms for 10 days. In fact, 10 days might be a conservative estimate. His third prediction, “Mobile's role in driving people into stores will be proven and it will blow us away,” is an interesting one considering the campaign Amazon AMZN ran last Christmas. Amazon paid consumers (in discounts) to leave physical retailers and shop online instead. Whether or not this strategy worked, Amazon has not said. Its competitors haven't commented on it either, though that's probably because Target TGT and Best Buy BBY would rather not talk about the fact that Amazon found another way to make them suffer. However, Spero's fourth prediction, “‘Mobile-driven spend' will emerge as a big category,” falls in line with the Kindle maker's goal to get us to use a smartphone to compare prices and leave Wal-Mart WMT to shop with Amazon instead. His fifth prediction, “Smartphones will prove exceptional at driving a new consumer behavior,” is another vague one. What is the new consumer behavior that it will drive? Obviously consumers who have a pocket computer (which is essentially what smartphones are) will use social media more often. They may also check their e-mail more often because they never have to be away from their Gmail account. But these are behavioral shifts that have been developing over the past few years. Spero is under the impression that “new” changes will occur. “Tablets will take their place as the 4th screen” is Spero's sixth prediction, and it sounds accurate enough. In fact, this might be the biggest no-brainer prediction on the list. However, I'm not to sure what “new industry standards” Spero anticipates from his seventh prediction. That seems like a bit of a pipedream to believe that the tech industry will actually agree on something. My favorite prediction would have to be the next one: “Five new, mobile first companies will reach the Angry Birds level of success.” The thought of that happening in 2012 – or any year, for that matter – is simply hilarious. Mobile gaming is not some cakewalk industry that's easy to crack. It is a you'd-better-get-lucky-or-else market that is overcrowded with thousands of clones and copycat games that are making it increasingly difficult for innovative releases to get any attention. You would think that consumers would gravitate toward original mobile content. And they probably would if they were given the chance to play original games. But the App Store is overcrowded with 99-cent junk that drenches the home page and distracts consumers from investigating higher-quality content. For any one company to achieve success anywhere near the level of Angry Birds, it would have to produce a game that is both fun and marketed in the luckiest and most perfect way possible. That's not likely to happen. Oh, and it would have to sell 200 million downloads. Again, that's not likely to happen. And if it did, who here believes it would happen to not one but five different companies within the same year? Next up we have another broad prediction that lacks specifics: “The ROI on mobile and tablet advertising will increase as a result of the unmatched relevance of proximity.” Don't you just love those last four words? Unmatched relevance of proximity. Brilliant, just brilliant. Coming in at number 10, Spero predicts, “The intersection of mobile and social will spark a dramatic new form of engaging consumers.” Isn't that already happening? Thankfully, Spero's last two predictions – “80% of the largest 2,000 websites globally will have an HTML5 site” and “One million small businesses globally will build a mobile website” – are both specific and realistic. Once more, Spero does not provide any info as to how many of the 2,000 largest websites already have an HTML5 site. He doesn't say how many small businesses already have a mobile site. So it is wholly possible that both achievements could be well within reach, reducing the significance of Spero's predictions. Follow me @LouisBedigian