In the fine tradition of educated guessing, I thought I'd try to preview what's going to happen, or not, in the Internet world over the next 12 months. Here goes...

Continuing the ten-year tradition of "mobile internet overtakes xxx" punditry that fails to materialize, mobile video and social networking services will not become mainstream in 2007. The mobile 1" experience combined with severely limited input mechanisms just won't replace larger-format mediums. Mobile does have a niche in short-format updates and will gain limited popularity as a snapshot pictures upload vehicle.

Social web technology continues to find popularity in corporate environments, with Wikis replacing traditional document management systems in more and more companies. Consumer-oriented social networking hits peak growth amongst fierce competition in a niche-sites vs mass media battle.

TV companies are forced to accept the fact that Internet video services are able to provide a more relevant experience to their viewers, but few are able to actually deliver a satisfying service. YouTube continues to encroach on their field, despite outcries of copyright violations. By end of the year, DVR's will be marketed by their capability of showing Internet video content on televisions in addition to recording broadcast stuff.

Update: whoa, it seems I was really, really late with my last prediction. Let me qualify that a bit -- I'm not personally going to be satisfied by things like an Apple HTPC able to download stuff from iTunes, Xbox 360 movie downloads from Microsoft, or other such walled-garden solutions. The Sony Bravia thing might be a tiny step closer to what I had in mind, but ultimately I expect someone to provide a box which is not locked to single-vendor content. Something like the Democrazy Player on a TV would fit the bill better. If the Venice Project ends up on a non-PC living room device, that'd be It.