I strolled over to ReadWriteWeb to see what Richard and the gang were up to, and behold they broke out the crystal ball before New Year! As usual the writers at RWW share some insightful and interesting predictions for 2008. I thought I should take the opportunity to share some of these and perhaps add a few of my own. Here is an abbreviated set of predictions from the crew at RWW -

• Richard MacManus, Editor RWW: “Semantic apps will become popular, particularly hakia and Powerset. “

• Marshall Kirkpatrick, Lead Writer RWW: “Twitter will be acquired.”

• Josh Catone, Lead Writer RWW: “Facebook will continue to grow and their platform will be adopted by other large social networks. Google will sweat.

• Alex Iskold, Feature Writer RWW: “Digg is going to be acquired by one of the mainstream media conglomerates.

• Emre Sokullu, Feature Writer RWW: “Microsoft will become more aggressive and buy many popular companies at once.”

• Sean Ammirati, Editor ReadWriteTalk: “Google will really start looking vulnerable in 2008.”

• Charles Knight, Editor AltSearchEngines: “In Quarter 1 of 2008 the true “Google Killer” in search will be in Stealth Mode.”

What I Think
Richard and these other great writers have covered their prospective ends of the Web as well as anyone and I certainly would no t second guess any of them, and particularly not on a prediction. I suppose the only difference in my own predictions will be a matter of semantics (no pun intended). As for some of these application directions and acquisitions, some fall into the category of “who cares?” in my opinion. Take the Facebook prediction of Josh Catone – Facebook will surely grow in 2008, but I do not see the platform as tenable past 2008. Something much better is sure to replace many of these Web 2.0 successes. Semantic search and the Web as a whole will certainly be transformed with the emergence of hakia and Powerset.

Twitter and other “cute and fuzzy” platforms will surely be snatched up when their value (or lack thereof) take a turn. The point I would make is that we have yet to see anything but the tip of the iceberg in terms of Web 3.0 startups and applications. Sean Ammirati makes a good point in that Google should become slightly frayed from the throng of competition and its own mediocre practices. This remains to be seen, but in my mind it is a foregone conclusion.

My prediction is that sometime after the second Quarter of 2008 hakia and other startups aimed roughly at Google’s “breadbasket” will begin to take effect. This will not be a thunderclap of impact, but simply significant because of potential – especially with regard to what Google has to do to fend off so many innovations. Microsoft is certainly not going to sit in the wings much longer in my view.