Aaron Worsham

There is a group of economists here in Michigan that call themselves the Conference Board.  They like to randomly call people, 5000 or so, people who have lots of free time and an eager willingness to share with complete strangers their personal opinions about whats wrong with the economy.  Amazingly enough, those same winners end up representing you and me in the Consumer Confidence Index, that pseduo-indicator that is the pulse of the American consumer’s psyche.

A crisp buck and the latest CCI data still won’t buy you a cup of coffee at Dunken Donuts, if you ask me.  So I developed a lil thing I like to call my HPPs, or Holiday Party Predictors.  With the right mix of people and a liberal addition of adult beverages, you can quantify what America  thinks about absolutely any topic.  The real trick is actually getting them to stop talking, but that’s another post.

Here are this years results from the many parties I attended in December.

1. Lan lines are as popular as fax machines.  I wandered into a conversation amongst  6 girls trading cell numbers and casually asked if any of them had a home phone.  ‘Home what?’  I know this isn’t a shocking revelation at first, but when you think about how pervasive the phone company has been for the last 75 years, their stock and trade was their control over that last mile to your door.  Another friend asked about home security systems still needing lan lines, which might be the only thing left besides DSL lines that old AT&T can ding regular consumers on.  I told him to just get the window stickers.  While corporations still have T1, T3 and other circuits that they pay huge markups on, the bigger pool by far was always home installation of phone lines.
2. Standalone GPS devices are this year’s PDA. They are being replaced by GPS enabled smartphones, or so my friends are all predicting.  Edge network may be slow, but it serves up Google maps quick enough for navigation where 3g isn’t available.  Out beyond edge coverage?  Ask directions.
3. Satellite TV is in trouble. My good friend brian said he is off Cable completely.  He has a DSL line for internet, an Antenna for HD over the Air, NetFlix, Hulu, Amazon Unbox and Boxee.  Figures he saves 60 – 80 a month.  That’s not chump change to people hurting to make ends meet.  There are more kids like Brian than you may think, and I believe this kind of setup is going to get some momentum this year.  Why satellite and not Cable?  Well, internet is still a utility item for my generation and cable is by far the prefered choice.  Naked Cable (internet without cable TV) is rare, so I’m thinking the most likely candidate for this would be a satellite/DLS customer.
4. Skype is legit.  My mother uses it every week to talk with my sister in Ireland.  My mother.  Enough said.
5. Facebook syndrome. Critical mass is nearing for Facebook.  That is the number of friends and family members it takes to convince a Luddite to join something online.  Once that number is reached, Facebook will have become a self-sustaining entity like Google, who’s popularity alone can generate more popularity in spite of any competitive alternates.  So many of my friends are on Facebook now that I’m starting to think the whole openId thing is going to be moot in the future.

There were plenty of other revelations this December, but I’m saving those for my book deal.  Should be any day now.

Photo attributed to dpstyles