Does anyone win these prediction posts? If I get four out of five, am I deemed a Wiley E. Coyote ‘Super Genius’? Perhaps a better title for this exercise is – ‘My Projections.’ In reality, I’m just trying to force my Pandora utopia upon the world (before the bulldozers).

We’ve been talking too long about the convergence of Media delivery via the net onto those expensive boxes called our TV’s. Some strides have been made but no one is really adopting this on a mass scale and that seems incredible to me. So I shall close my eyes and imagine a perfected screen.

In 2010, I shall fire up my Firefox or Google Chrome for Mac and the enabled extensions will be serving recommendations of media from not only the networks that I’ve marked as favorable but from a group of trusted voices who discover hidden documentary gems, hand-made media that doesn’t waste my time and pushes the potential of free-thinking-free-wheeling filmmaking. I will have been set free of the servings of a small cabal of network execs. I shall click on the options and build a playlist complete with options to dive deeper into the work. I will find that the creators of this media actually care about building a community and engage in a real-time conversation with them. I will widen my discovery circle from the people who also shared in this viewing experience. We will actually care about the sponsors who made it possible for us to connect and gather.

No longer battle fatigued from fighting the migration war between my desktop to the big screen, I will evangelize truly great media work to a wider audience- proving that the long tail has a powerful kick.

For all this to happen, we must encourage those who are already doing this. I spent a lot of time thinking about what Leo Laporte is doing with TWiT.tv this year. He’s producing high end shows that focus on a narrow subject and is going deeper into the conversation. This approach to ‘network’ programming is a trend worth celebrating. Laporte is fond of saying you shouldn’t approach web programming the same way as conventional t.v. What I think he means is that we’re no longer just interested in mono-directional media.

Marc Canter stated this year that ‘all software will be social,’ I’d like to extend that to all ‘media’ will be social as well. Christopher Nolan understood this when he hosted a live viewing party for the release of Dark Knight on Blu-Ray. See where I’m going with this? It’s not good enough just to have our media ported from the desk to the set, we want it extended into an experience. I know we’ll see more of this in 2010 (even if we have to do it ourselves).

I chuckle a bit when there’s a story on the increase in web viewing- of course there is! We have more people online, the offerings are getting better and wider. Now it’s up to us to push the maturation of this trend. We have cable companies buying networks, the rise of boxes that stream online content and the social nets to connect with fellow viewers – let’s get on with IT.

I can safely predict/ project in 2010:

YouTube will get serious about building out channels. They will focus on building more efficient filters/ curation.

Apple TV will show us something slick but not perfect.

Boxee and Roku will spend too much time trying to play nice with the old media guards and not enough time in fostering new voices.

Film Festivals will be a conversation with the global live audience – they must evolve as the value of them are diminishing fast.

One of the news networks will figure out how to serve the local perspective into their coverage – allowing viewers to click for Flickr pictures, YouTube vids, tweet streams, etc.

Movie studios will test more films through live streaming.

I can also safely state in 2010:

I still won’t be able to move all of my content legally from the desk to the set to mobile…

…though it may be less of a necessity as more streams are going to be available in more places.

Here is a bit of a wish-list of sorts for 2010:

Content producers will realize that they need to hold onto the rights of the behind-the-scenes / making of material and build out actual live viewing events with them.

More filmmakers will open up to the idea of bringing the audience into the process of filmmaking.

Agencies will develop specialized departments to assist filmmakers/ tv producers in promotion/ marketing and securing alternative funding streams for original work.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a trend in 2010 will be the migration from our web content to our living rooms. What remains to be seen is will support mechanisms be in place to make it profitable enough for independent producers to push towards an OPEN flow for their works?