I’ve been reading quiet a future 2009 predictions posts recently. Some predictions are severely overhyped. Recently on AlwaysOn Steve Rosenbaum ( http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/30655 ) made the prediction that Consumers begin to pay for content (read Digital goods). As you read further he gives the example of Apple’s App store growth as a leading indicator of future growth.

He had me until he mentioned:

“But in 2009 you’ll see more video series, ebooks, photo collections, memberships, and subscriptions gain a foothold. There’s some real world reasons for this – web based digital goods are a better value than their real world counterparts in many cases.”

Better value than real world counterparts? Woa, woa, woa. Slow down buddy. While some of the iphone apps I saw at MacWorld certainly made me dish out my wallet, I do not think that at this time you can make a blanket statement for other digital content. Ebooks for example are generally more pricey or just as pricey as bookstore books, but since they have not gone through the extensive editing process of a book from a publisher I would argue they actually offer lower value than regular books.

In theory due the ease of editing ebook info is more updated than that of a physical book but in my experience this has not been significantly so. This is not to diss ebooks as there certainly are quality ebooks out there but I do not think ebook growth will parallel some of the other items Steve has mentioned. What do you think?

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