Is it too late to make 2007 predictions 3 weeks into the year? Here are a few on my mind...

  

 

Google CRM (Phase 1)

 

GMail contact management allows consumers to create their own extensible metadata for managing contacts. Google Apps for your domain allows you to share your contacts with others in an organization.

 

Expect small businesses to start leveraging these features as Google goes head-to-head with Microsoft Live Office (or is it Office Live? I always mix these up) to provide basic CRM needs to small businesses.

 

Later, integration with Google Pages will enable basic "dialogues" through the web, such as Contact Us form collection.

 

 

The term Wiki has now been stretched far beyond its original intention of being the canonical example of the absolute simplest web collaboration application. Wiki's that require users to login, provide access controls, content versioning, spellchecking, and variable formatting syntax are no longer Wiki's. They are Content Management Systems (CMS).

 

Corporate Wikis will return to their roots and be accepted as un-structured data. Consumer facing Wikis will outgrow their Wiki lineage and become increasingly sophisticated and complicated, but will unfortunately be forever referred to as "Wiki".

 

 

The proliferation of Internet Explorer 7, with its ease of feed subscription, will force more business and consumer users to discover the power of the "little orange buttons".

 

 

 

The Swiss army knife of Phone/PDA/MP3 player will, at best, be an 80% solution for each of the purposes it serves. Expect a return to 100% focused, small, and elegant devices with a price tag to fit.