It's the end of year, a time of looking back, and ahead. A fun time to make predictions, and look back at predictions made earlier - although that usually is much less fun

I predict that:

• everyone will have a Twitter account in 2010


• Every company will also have one, and use it too


• There will be Twitter boards in public places, public ones as well as private ones, some of which will be censored to a degree, much like the delay already present on US radio- and TV shows


• The private Tweet boards will also monitor Foursquare and BrightKite in order to see what the world is thinking about that particular place

Companies will have a Twitter identity just as they are supposed to have websites

• Companies will actually buy back Twitter identities already claimed just like they bought back URL's 10 years ago

Doing so, companies can prevent public outrage like this weekend's Channel tunnel drama
The real disaster there was not knowing anything. It took Eurostar on Twitter 20 hours to respond, and that amount of Tweets is still almost nothing compared to the buzz going on

• A business case for Social Business Design? Not needed

Given the fact that the initial investment is almost zero, and the fact that an online presence is a requirement already. You do need a plan though, as for everything. And don't try to push old marketing failures down this new channel

Of course the effect of all that will be measured. No better way to visualise, than a great visualisation I say

• I predict Mentionmap and Where Do You Go to become great tools for 2010 and onwards

• Twitter will become the source of news
• Either making it, or spreading it like crazy
• Old-fashioned news networks will take a beating from this
• And if they move in the opposite direction, they might not even survive

I wish you all a great new year!

Martijn Linssen is Enterprise Integration Architect within Capgemini. You can follow him via Twitter or join him on LinkedIn