Yes, it’s time for more predictions about 2010.  The great thing about making predictions is that if you’re right, you look like a genius.  The other great thing about making predictions is that if you’re wrong, you can just shrug your shoulders and say, “Yes, but…”

With that in mind, I’m going to take the risk of making a few predictions related to technology, the Web, and social media for 2010.  As I see it, there’s no downside to trying.

1) Blogs will still be alive and well. That is, the blogs that are still being read will be alive and well.  The blogs that aren’t been read may be alive, but they’ll be sickly and easily sidelined.  One thing to watch will be the fates of the larger tech blogs.  Will they survive unscathed in 2010 without folding or merging with other blogs?  Will the ad revenues and other income streams allow the current number of blogs to stay strong and grow in 2010?

2) Someone will buy Twitter in 2010 – it’s just too tempting of a target and I predict that it will be rather difficult for it to grow beyond the service that exists today.  Whoever buys it needs to fix the plumbing, too.  At the same time, I predict that Twitter’s growth has peaked and will decline.  By that, I mean the number of actual humans using Twitter accounts has pretty much leveled off.  However, there’s unlimited potential for automated accounts to be created (kind of like blogs, really).

3) Facebook will still be alive and well, even though they will likely keep making dumb, offensive mistakes in the ways that they treat their users.  Uh, what I actually meant to write is that Facebook will continue to tweak its user interface and privacy settings as it continues to copy what other websites are doing well.  Sorry, I meant to use the word improve.  Whatever.  Facebook will keep growing and will eventually have to be surgically removed from its users.

4) FriendFeed will continue to survive as too many bloggers would moan and cry about the impact of the RSS subscriptions if the FriendFeed subscriptions were to disappear.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that…  I’d be one of them, in fact.  However, FriendFeed as an application will probably remain frozen in its current state forever.

5) RSS readers will still exist in 2010.  Various websites and applications, however, will continue to develop and implement creative ways to use RSS technology to supplement their own content.

6) Google will supernova and turn into a black hole due to sheer mass and density of information, sucking up the rest of the Web.  Translation:  Google will continue to grow, offering lots of services of varying degrees of value while it continues to capture demographic and behavioral detail to the point that they are able to provide the operating system and memories of the world’s first artificial human.  Calling the Google Phone Android is a cute inside joke that also acts to distract everyone from their actual plans.  Regardless, this is just another step in Google’s nigh unstoppable quest to own the world’s information.

7) There will still be lots of desktop and laptop PCs, even though the growth of mobile computing will undoubtedly slow down their growth of their bulkier cousins.

8.) There will be more smart phones in use. I know, it’s a shocking prediction.  But I fully expect mobile computing use to branch out to pets in 2010.  I’m not quite sure how just yet, but I feel it in my bones – it’s coming.

9) There will be no new ground-breaking, earth-shaking, paradigm-shifting, game-changing technology introduced in 2010 (not withstanding smart phones for pets).  New products and services will all be variations or tweaks of existing ideas.

10) However, the lack of mind-blowing innovation will not prevent business and technology writers from expounding upon the unparallel merits of a new product or service especially when there’s a handy press release nearby to use in crafting a blog post.

11) This final prediction is more of a wish (or pipe dream, if you will):  2010 will see a resurgence of the individual blogger.  I predict that the one person show will make waves in 2010 as readers begin to tire of the group blog format and look to the individual author/editor.  This group may have to keep their day jobs, but they may win prestige, eyeball time, and whuffie if nothing else.

Let’s all check back in at the end of 2010 and have a good laugh at these predictions.

[Editor’s Note: When not ANGLing, Mark Dykeman writes at Broadcasting Brain and other fine blogs. –mrh]