Predictions for 2014, off the top and some over

Predictions for the new year cover a variety of topics including healthcare, landlines, rainfall, blogging and publishing.

1. Consumers will continue to debate whether there should be ads on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc., then sigh with relief that phone solicitors no longer call because they disconnected their landlines.
2. Just when you think landlines have completely disappeared, the new version will include a 22nd century version of the home intercom with screens for Skype like communications room to room, or room to smartphone, that revert to security monitors that can be tapped anywhere the user has internet access such as the office or on vacation.
3. During 2014, there will be a resurgence of blogging as self-published authors seek to develop an audience for their self-published books. Blog posts will be posted in all social media venues until the noise level reaches ringing in the ear level.
4. Self-published authors will continue to rise while a sub-industry quickly develops to assist the reading audience vet the muck from the ready-for-print-fully-edited tomes.
5. 2014 will continue to be the year that healthcare is debated. Audience fatigue will set in sometime mid-year, and by the time school is back in fall session the bulk of the audience will have tuned out, except for those desperate for care who won't understand why it doesn't matter to everyone else anymore.
6. Christmas card sending will experience a resurgence, despite the reticence of 360 Convos to embrace the movement.
7. Workers will investigate how to send drones to the office to do the work and collect their paychecks.
8. Rainfall in the Northwest will reach record lows, as the global warming debate rages on.
9. During the year 2014, no one will invent ear buds (inexpensive) that do not fall apart after six uses.
10. No one will want to see a repeat performance of Miley Cyrus' 2013. 

What do you predict?

Mobile payments: the money is stuck in my phone

I worked with a fellow who balked at creating a gmail account because he didn't want too many passwords out there (here's the post).

"It puts my bank account in danger," he explained.

My guess is, he still uses his cell to make phone calls.

My other guess is that the rest of us use our cell phones to check our gmail, listen to music, google the earth, check on our blogs, our twitter, our foursquare, our LinkedIn, our fitness plan, our stock prices, jot notes to ourselves, and record a voice message.

I shudder to think what my former co-worker will do when he discovers he will be making payments via his mobile phone.

According to a post on the Reflections of a Newsosaur, phones will replace currency and credit cards.

"It’s not a matter of if, but when," says Alan D. Mutter.

"The check's on the phone," we'll promise creditors.

During their follow up contact we'll swear, "We got disconnected before I could complete the transaction!"

If you lose your phone, as I did recently, and thank you Stephen King for it's safe return, you'll be making payments with what? Cash? The importance of the receipt will rise and bury us in unneeded slips of paper. We'll have to prove we paid that bill in cash with another piece of paper. Or, a scan of a piece of paper.

We will no longer have credit reports, we'll have phone numbers that denote our status of good payers. It will morph to our 'phone-it-in' score. A good score will make our KLOUT rise along with our perks of unnecessary offers.

We'll be drowning in credit-connectness, personal QR codes based on our ability to pay, finance, float or dodge. Our phones will act as personal transponders that open doors, gates and bridges.

Waving our phone at someone will be an honor of respect and will probably leech a few dollars out if we shake it too hard.

Google will be our new bank.

And you thought gmail would always be free.