Hoovering up social networking predictions commences round December time. David Armano of Edelman Digital has put together a series of six for the Harvard Business Review. Some strike a similar tone to those discussed on here earlier: the downfall of the location specialists like Foursquare as their niche is integrated into the larger players.
Edelman's predictions highlight some of the larger themes that we can expect to continue during 2011: the inability of any large player to maintain a walled garden for their users; the continued dominance of the first movers and greater innovation in hardware and software to keep people on the go all of the time.
Three of the points do merit further play. The first is the return of the Googleplex, as Google cements its role with search functions that tap into the social networking history of the networked individual. And there will be a market for a Wayback machine for individuals. As the second point is social media schizophrenia: individuals torn and twisted by the informational overload. The answer for this may come in 2011, with an early for of the avatar (where are you when we need you?)
The third issue was the slow take-up of social networking amongst companies. Successes have been limited to PR, marketing and brand management. That is because firms have not had to allow social networking or Web 2.0 to leap the firewall. That may start to change.