Over Christmas and New Year, paidContent:UK is asking digital media figures to pledge a resolution for the year ahead and look back at the last 12 months. Last time was Press Association content head John Angeli; next up is that chap off the telly, BBC News’ tech correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones…
— What’s your New Year’s resolution?: “My resolution for 2009 – and I hope that for the whole industry – is to keep perfectly calm, Mr Mainwaring. We’ve all swung ever so rapidly from mindless optimism about the promise of technology – and tech firms – to an equally thoughtless pessimism. Other personal resolutions – to spend a little less time aimlessly surfing the web and tweeting, a little more actually talking to my wife and kids. They may not welcome this development of course. Oh, and I’m determined to get more Twitter followers than Jemima Kiss by the end of 2009. Not going to happen though.”
— Biggest regret of 2008?: “My biggest regret is that I only began blogging this year – I should have started much earlier, when it was the cool thing to do. But maybe blogging in bed wasn’t such a good idea. I also regret spending so much time thinking about the Microsoft/Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) with so little result.”
— What will really happen next year?: “Yahoo will get a new boss – ummm, David Ross, formerly of Carphone Warehouse, has got time on his hands. As has Jonathan Ross. But I would be surprised if the business is still independent by the end of the year. Tens of thousands of others across the technology industry will, sadly, lose their jobs, and a host of Web 2.0 firms will disappear. We will also see the birth of a brilliant new technology business which will change the world. But we won’t know its identity until around 2015.”