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Mercifully, the time for year-in-review posts and top ten lists is almost behind us. Mind you, there were plenty of interesting recaps of media and technology action in the past year, not to mention lists of popular techie podcasts from IT Conversations, viral videos (and the difference between memorable and most viewed), social media moments, and lists of lists.

This week, as colleagues drifted back into the office, I spent some time exploring 2008 predictions covering web technology, digital media, and Internet industry trends. I was looking for common threads and for insight.

Battelle is bullish on advertising markets despite the acknowledged economic downturn. He focuses most of his scrutiny on what lies ahead for the big players and their disruptors. He believes that

"2008 will also be seen as the year that proves Conversational Marketing as a new form of advertising, and by the end of the year, adding value to a customer's life through marketing will be seen as a necessity as opposed to an experiment."

Micropersuasion's Steve Rubel extends a kindred idea in the first post of his series on digital trends in 2008. In Media Battle Advertisers for Eyeballs, he suggests that the traditionally symbiotic relationship between media and advertising is under threat in a digital environment when "any brand can become a media company" and make its own appeal to a consumer's attention, start its own conversation. His second essay introduces Living Room 2.0 (just in time for CES!).

J.P. Morgan's Internet analyst, Imran Khan, released a 312-page report titled "Nothing but Net," which predicts that leading Internet stocks will continue to grow and outperform the broader markets.

And in an utterly different vein, Edge.org launched its always invigorating World Question Center 2008 site, where 163 really big thinkers from an extraordinary range of disciplines take on the question, "What have you changed your mind about? Why?" This is savory fare for the philosophically inclined. After all, doesn't a change of mind sometimes propel a person out of the past and into a future they had not imagined?

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By the way, the year-number images were created using Erik Kastner's Spell with flickr utility, one of my favorite flickr apps. Erik is no slouch -- his BravoNation bookmarklet is one of the first Bravo hacks, built over the holidays, within days of the BravoNation "Rough Draft" release. The bookmarklet lets you overlay an image and draw behind it to create your custom Bravo.

Flickr photos from labworks, holeymoon, and the prolific single digit shooter, Leo Reynolds. Thank you. Photos found via Spell with flickr.

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