What might the future of the Internet be?  What can it be?  How empowering can it be for Capitalism and Democracy in the 21^st century? What must we do to maximize the positive possibilities the Internet provides humanity as we stand at the fork in the road Buckminster Fuller foresaw decades ago: – Utopia or Oblivion?

As a futurist this is the perspective from which  I think about the current issues of “net neutrality” or the “open net”.  The current debate on Net Neutrality is now center stage due to a court ruling forcing the FCC to suggest a new doctrine.  …

This is the second of three columns where I look at all the forecasts I have made about things that might happen through the end of 2013.  As I wrote in the first column here this is not an exercise in self-congratulation.  It is an opportunity to look back not just on forecast accuracy but to analyze why or why not trends developed, things happened and perhaps what that might suggest going forward.

Almost all of my forecasts about specifics are on the forecast page of my web site

Date of Forecast

September 2008

Forecast

Complete genetic mapping for individuals …

Last November, I wrote a column here about the future of cable television.  In that column from last November I forecast:

“Cable television subscriptions will experience noticeable percentage declines in the next three to five years.”

Last week it was announced that for the first time in history paid television subscriptions dropped 216,000 with cable taking the greatest hit.

The conventional wisdom of course is that this is due to the bad economic conditions of today.  Of course that is a factor, but the times have been bad for the past two years.  The new dynamic is what I touched upon …

In the past three months I had delivered around 35 speeches and presentations.  During about 25 of them I have asked the audience the question that is the title of this column (why I will explain later).

.Whether it is a confidential gathering of 10-15 CEOs or a hotel ballroom of 400-500 people, when I ask this question, I have never had anyone raise their hand.  That is worth repeating.  25 times I have asked audiences to “Raise your hand if you love your cable company” and not a single person has raised their hand!

Not only that, but most of the …