Yes, it is that Nostradamus time of the year when experts, pundits and amateurs enjoy looking into a crystal ball and venturing what the next year will bring to New Media.

It’s fun and it’s silly, so following from my somewhat successful forecast of 2007 ( here and here), these are some initial thoughts on what 2008 might be like.

Let’s start with two market leaders that you should never underestimate. The market is theirs to lose, and this is what might happen in 2008:

1. Google
The search giant will continue to diversify its business model without much success. Users love gmail, gmaps and youtube and will love other new nifty products to launch in 2008 around open social.
Still, diversification of usage does not equate diversification of revenues and advertisers will continue to remain largely interested in the adsense/adwords megauniverse only.
My forecast for 2008: Google continues to compromise its search results by becoming a media company and loses its focus on its search core product. As a result its market dominance in search still grows in 2008 but early adopters and privacy groups start recommending and using alternative search engines.

2. Facebook
Social networks cannot be monetized effectively today due to lack of sufficient content oversight and poor click-through performance metrics. Zuckenberg was therefore very brave and on the right path in trying out the Beacon service as an alternative monetization vehicle, even though it misfired.
Credit should also be given for creating an open development platform that might take the company in new and interesting ways.
My forecast for 2008: Facebook (or another major stake in the company) will be sold this year at a silly multiple. Why? Because although user and usage is about to slow down as the cool kids move on, the company is pretty much in any target list for online acquisitions

Other expected trends in 2008:
- The portals: Yahoo and AOL will go through major restructurings as display ad market goes soft and shareholders look for exit strategies
- The US online market will wake up to the fact that web innovation is now global through the emergence and global growth of a couple international startups
- The points of interaction between online and offline will grow, such as meetups and photobooks

That’s all for now, more random musings and crystal ball gazing in 2008…. Enjoy the holidays!