ReadWrite Web has published their list of predictions for 2008. They actually did pretty good on their predictions for this year so it may make sense for anyone publishing blogs and website to pay attention. While not all their predictions came true, Google did not release a Google Operating system, but they where correct with how much RSS has grown and there have been quite a few new rich web based applications released this year. While Google did not create and release their own operating system, they did continue their move into the Rich Application arena with improvements to Gmail, and their office type apps with Google Docs.
One thing that is predicted to happen is that Google will start to feel more pressure from other companies in the area of Search. I personally would like to see this happen as Google is becoming to much of a monopoly. Hopefully Live will be able to take some ground in search and force Google to stop beating up on the little guy as they have done lately. Microsoft has deep pockets and I fully expect them to start pushing pressure on Google in several areas. As Vista reaches more of any adoption in businesses this year, I’m sure this will help Microsoft take back some ground from Google in several areas. Microsoft has built quite a few features into the platform that while it does not force users to choose the live products, it is a lot easier to utilize the MS products than it is with products from third party companies.
We should also start to see an increase in the number of advertisers offering contextual advertising programs. This will be really good for the small publishers as it will provide more avenues to earn revenue for your sites. Adsense is still a good choice for a lot of sites, I still use it on other of my sites, but it is not earning the same amount as it as a year ago with increased traffic. Perhaps more competition in this area will force Google to start paying a little better to its publishers. Regardless any competition in this area will help both Advertisers and publishers in their contextual advertising efforts.
It will be very interesting to see how many of their predictions come true.
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