It’s that time of year, when would-be futurists are compelled to publicly assert their predictions for the coming year. IMHO, I knocked it out of the park with my prediction for 2008.
So, I decided to go bigger this year, and make not one, but five bold predictions around the emergence of the Social Web.
Prediction 1: Facebook will begin its migration to the “Open Stack” and roll out support for at least one piece of it. Leading candidates: OpenID and OAuth.
Prediction 2: Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft will rollout support for Portable Contacts for their respective webmail services.
Prediction 3: Microsoft will implement OAuth, at least for Portable Contacts, if not more broadly.
Prediction 4: Microsoft’s “Windows Live” social network will become an OpenSocial container.
Prediction 5: Plaxo will so successfully prove onboard turbocharging via the Open Stack that they will abandon traditional email/password signups entirely.
These predictions are solely my opinion and are not based on any knowledge of specific product plans — except for maybe number 5. 
As with last year, I will check in on these at mid-year and end of the year.
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December 22, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Happy Holidays from The Social Web TV « The Real McCrea
[...] December 22, 2008 in Uncategorized | Tags: chrismessina, josephsmarr This episode went up over the weekend over at The Social Web TV. After many weeks of travel, Chris Messina is back, joining me and Joseph Smarr for our first year-end holiday show. You can see me develop off the top of my head some of my bold predictions for 2009. [...]
December 24, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Marc Canter
Indeed Microsoft will be supporting OpenSocial – in 2009.
January 2, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Moti Karmona
Interesting predictions.
Regarding Prediction 4: Why do you think that Microsoft’s “Windows Live” social network will become an OpenSocial container when all the signs seems to predict the opposite:
1. Microsoft exec trashes Google’s OpenSocial
2. Microsoft Gives OpenSocial the Cold Shoulder;
3. Google/OpenSocial vs. Microsoft/Facebook
January 2, 2009 at 4:00 pm
therealmccrea
Moti, thanks for your question. I see Microsoft making moves on the Open Stack. They’ve become an OpenID provider. I believe they will support OAuth. And they have been involved in the Portable Contacts initiative every step along the way. Also, at Le Web, an exec was asked about OpenSocial, and the answer was something along the lines of “we’re looking at it”. I have *no* inside information on this one, but I thought it was an interesting “long shot” prediction to put out there. Plus, with Microsoft entering the social networking space, they are essentially competing with Facebook. So, this will be interesting to see what happens!
January 5, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Agitationist
Slightly more bold predictions:
http://agitationist.com/2009-predictions-for-the-interweb
Would like to hear your take…