'Tis the season for predictions; couldn't help myself 

I, Amy Bellinger, being of relatively sound mind, on this 3rd day of January, 2007, in the city of the state, do hereby issue the following predictions:

Internet:

- Web ad revenue will continue to rise throughout 2007 despite fears about ads as a sustaining model. Smart consumer startups and older online properties will begin to experiment with other revenue streams, like itty-bitty payments (smaller than micropayments), in anticipation of the day the music dies. Advertising will work longer-term for a class of b2b verticals and will add up to more money than you might think.

- We'll see another round of commentary advocating a simpler name, simpler ways of describing, and simpler ways of using RSS feeds to help everybody get it. There might be a movement to encourage more consumption of feeds in e-mail, in the belief there's a comfort level with the inbox, and it will be frustratingly fruitless to argue against all the nodding heads in meetings where that "truth" is spoken.

- Widgets will keep heating up. The definition of "widget" will be all over the map.

- Message boards will make a comeback -- maybe as elements within social networking spaces -- and Rheingoldian concepts of community will be rediscovered to help out with the scarcity of good manners in blog comments and forums.

- PR practitioners will continue to try to shape discourse on the web, and their clients will continue to pay in ways they never bargained for. As PR gets a dirtier name, a short-term solution be to dress the wolf in sheep's clothing by burying mention of PR firms and the PR discipline, and forming sub-departments and agency practices rechristened with hip-sounding online names.

- MySpace-type social networking sites for specific verticals will be deployed by trade associations and trade magazines, and the members and subscribers will like it a lot.

Political:

- Somehow, by some means or as a consequence of events we can't yet know, Democratic power brokers and the people they are able to persuade will decide that neither Obama nor Clinton can win a general election, and we'll end up with some watered-down white guy as the Democratic candidate for president.

- Bush is going to try to attack Iran, and there will be hell to pay. He and his hawk cronies won't be allowed to get anything going there. Fool us once... well, you can't get fooled again.

A supereliterenaissanceperson corps 

I missed some of the Ford burial day speeches, but what I saw was quite moving. A video miscue, which caused a picture of the band to stay on the screen while the choir began to sing, made me think what a cool elite corps it would be to have a combination band and choir. Thrifty too!

Back home 

I'm home from visiting my parents in Florida for a week. My brother's visit overlapped mine by a few days. It was odd and fun to hang with my old nuclear family for the first time in decades. No in-laws or kids.

I'm so stuffed. All we did was eat.