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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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It seems like a long time ago, but back in March, MapMixer (originally named “Remaps") was born as a hack project at Yahoo!. Hack Day is a 24-hour innovation fest that happens every quarter. During hack days, Yahoos take time off from their normal jobs and bring to life their inventive, crazy, new, and sometimes world-changing ideas. After the blood, sweat, and empty boxes of pizza, what's left is a “hack,” which is then presented to everyone in a two-minute demo.

That's how MapMixer was built – during 24 hours of non-stop caffeine-fueled coding. (In retrospect, this was nothing compared to what it took to get the final product out the door, but more on that later.)

First, let tell you more about where the MapMixer idea originated. As an engineer for Yahoo! Travel, maps have always been dear to me. So, I was kind of annoyed when I was visiting my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and I didn’t know where to find the visitor parking lots! Searching around the web, I found many maps that didn’t have the info I needed. Finally I found a PDF that had my info, which of course loaded the Acrobat browser plug-in and crashed my browser. (Seriously, nothing but love to Adobe, but the Acrobat browser plug-in often crashes my browser.) All I wanted was a single map with parking details. “Maybe this experience could be better?” I wondered… With that the seed for MapMixer was planted.

I decided to fix this problem for the upcoming hack day, put together a team, and built a prototype. The response was overwhelming. People got it — and loved the concept immediately. Only a couple weeks after our hack day presentation, the project was green-lighted for a public release.

Once we had the green light, we didn’t waste any time. Building MapMixer was like working at a startup, with one major difference: we had access to the amazing infrastructure already in place at Yahoo!. Our team had only two engineers full time, so we had to scrap around for part time help for all other functions.

With support from Adam Chang, a seasoned Yahoo! Travel product manager, we made rapid progress. We had to plan ahead in order to keep the several integration points with other teams internally in order. I got my hands dirty in all aspects of the product release including engineering, design, branding, marketing, legal, etc. It was an intense experience. (I regularly used the sleeping bag and 2 pillows under my desk. No kidding.)

Being able to launch MapMixer is a great feeling, and the coverage was terrific -- but the war was won by many small victories along the way. We are still fine-tuning the application and continuing to think about new ways to make it even easier to use and share.

I hope you continue to find MapMixer useful (and fun)! If you happen to have a good map you’d like to share, don’t hesitate to add it to the MapMixer collection. Check out this University of Illinois parking map or mix up one of your own:

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