I didn’t do too badly predicting what would happen in the consumer Internet space in 2010 so I am giving it another try for 2011:

• Android will become the most important mobile platform to develop for – the iPhone platform will be number 2, the rest (RIM, Windows Phone) will only play a marginal role. While Android has clearly been gaining market share on the iPhone in the past months, most developers still consider iOS the most important platform – this perception will change in 2011.
• Mobile apps will start impacting offline purchasing decision in a significant way. 2010 has seen the launch of many mobile shopping app like Shopkick or Barcode Hero (a W Media portfolio company) but 2011 will be the break-through year for “local, mobile commerce”.
• Early-stage financing will continue to be close to a bubble as there is simply too much money chasing too few deals. So if you run a start-up, think about raising that next round of financing rather earlier than later. (On a side note: the Canadian market is clearly not as hot as the US market).
• IPO and M&A markets will finally open up. It has been long time since we have seen a major IPO in the web space and a hot M&A market – I thought that this would already happen in 2010 but hey, 2011 is good enough!

I originally wanted to come up with 5 predictions but had a hard time finding as many without either completely speculating or stating the obvious – so what do you think will happen in 2011?