Peter Kim published a great paper that is well worth your time to read. He amassed a group of thought leaders in the social media space to give their predictions for 2009. While he didn’t invite me to add my 2 cents this year I’m going to do that here and maybe he’ll invite me next year. :)

Agencies: Social media agencies will continue to grow and add clients at the expense of the larger media/creative agencies. I talk a lot to marketers working in social media and all agree large agencies have not yet developed this muscle thought they do pitch it as a core competency in some cases. In this economic downturn my money is on the small, nimble agencies. They are hungry for this work and are regular contributors to the social media community which means they have their fingers on the pulse of what’s next. I recently hired a small agency to work with Windows’ on a 12 month roadmap for our social media team and one of my core requirements was the people at the agency HAD to be participating in the space; blogging, chatting, etc. They have to be using the technology and participating which shows skin in the game.

Apps/Widgets: The current business model for apps is broken. Apps are very difficult to discover whether it’s on Facebook or the iPhone which makes scale virtually impossible to reach. App networks are beginning to emerge where a brand can basically  ‘rent’ an app for a period of time garnering them the exposure of the apps fan base without the investments of time and resources to build the app then find the followers. This makes sense to me if the brand can find the right fit. If you are Random House and you have a new book being published an app or widget that is devoted to literary reviews or discussing books like Goodreads would be very appropriate. For a fraction of the cost Random House would get the exposure to their target audience without having to build an app that would likely never be discovered by more than a handful of people.

Strategy:  While a few of the experts in Peter’s paper predicted this would be the year for brands to build an actual strategy before chasing the shiny new object I am less inclined to agree. I’m happy to say this is in fact exactly what my social media team is doing right now and we are very excited to be working with Ignite and Jim Tobins’ group on this.

Windows Live Writer: I am writing this blog post right now on the airplane ride from San Jose home to Seattle. I love Windows Live Writer and so does just about everyone that uses it. Check out what our community has to say about it.  Writer will change the way you blog. I think Writer will get more attention in 2009, it’s a sleeper product waiting to explode.

Plus a few predictions that are a going out on a limb;

1. Second Life will finally call it quits
2. Mobile will still not make a dent in the opportunity awaiting that industry
3. Brands will continue to stumble with splashy campaigns that are less than authentic – hiring bloggers, planting UGC