A Look Ahead to 2005

John Battelle has published his predictions for 2005, and he’s got some great ideas. I have a few things I’d like to add though I wouldn’t classify these as predictions so much as wistful longings/scarey inklings.

Ahem. My list for 2005:

RFID sewn into clothing hits big when it’s paired with a handheld fashion device (PDA) that pulls your outfits together for you. Think “Garanimals for Grown-ups”.
RSS moves beyond the web to independent devices. Someone will build a stand-alone digital picture frame that pulls in flickr feeds via WiFi. Do this please unknown RSS genius, I beg you.
Amazon adds a friends section (ala Netflix), so I can see what my friends have read and how they rated books.
My company will track employee entry/exit from the building & tie this into the employee phonebook so I can tell if someone’s actually in the office. Better yet, they tie this into the company meeting system so I can tell if I’m being ducked or if should get voicemail.
I will be able to have an intelligent conversation with a co-worker about the merits of RSS, Wikis or Blogs in the workplace. Additionally, others at work won’t shun me for bringing the subject(s) up.
e-Harmony, Match and other on-line services will provide RSS feeds for compatible dates. Rejection will happen more efficiently.
The boundaries between flickr, feedster, 43 things, furl and others will continue to blur until it doesn’t matter which site you’re on. The total experience will be available from any site.
Similiarly, a company (Apple, please?) will make a handheld device that will take pictures, provide phone service, play MP3s and do all the lovely PDA stuff so I can chuck these stand-alone devices and once again use my skinny purses.
Firefox will become the default RSS reader, if not the default browser, for my company.
Someone (Gmail, Hotmail, Who?) will provide RSS feeds so I can then manage all my content from one source.
And finally, all of my friends will put RSS feeds on their blogs! (hint, hint)