This week, Travis and Stewart wrap up 2016 -- which has been such a great year </sarcasm> -- with their predictions for the future of mobile, marketing, engagement, community, and everything else we manage to shoehorn into VB Engage each week.

We also thank our families, producers, directors, makeup artists, and editors for 33 episodes of slightly above-average content and reveal which publication was kind enough to put us in their "must listen" list of marketing podcasts for 2017.

Then, we interview Paddy Cosgrave -- the founder of Web Summit -- on how he and his team managed to grow this tech event from humble beginnings to an incredible 53,000 visitors in just a few short years. The answers include data science, network effect, and a serious amount of hard work.

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By listening to this episode of the VB Engage podcast, you will hear:

    Thanks again to everyone who has tuned in this year! We’ve had nearly 8 billion people listen to our podcast on Earth, and over 13 billion aliens from other planets. We are so blessed and humbled by the response so far! #posttruth

    See you next year on January 10 with Episode 34, as we kick off 2017 with the one and only Robert Scoble.  We discuss his new book, The Fourth Transformation, VR/AR/MR, and what’s up Apple’s sleeve with its next iPhone. You’ll want to join us for that!

    If you missed last week’s episode with Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of Reddit, you can listen to it right here. And before you end 2016, you should subscribe to VB Engage below and give Travis and Stewart the gift of a several-star rating -- and maybe even type some words in a review.  They would do the same for you, you know!

    Happy holidays!  See you again Tuesday, January 10.