I’m not a big fan of going on record and making predictions about the future – especially when it comes to web marketing and other Internet technologies. This space moves so fast it’s hard to tell where it’s going sometimes.
However, I have a suspicion about the direction we may see the spaces of social media and how people engage through web technologies. These thoughts are all based off what is happening among web publishers.
Web Publishers
The barriers are so incredibly low to publishing content online that more people will publish more content in more places.
Aggregation
Since web publishers are spreading more of their content on many different web/social media services, there will an increased need to aggregate all of it together. One of the ways this is happening now is called “lifestreaming” where content published on various sites are aggregated into a “river of news” updates in one place. This is one of the major directions in which Facebook is already moving. The lifestreaming space will continue to grow.
Subscriptions
Readers want to access various web media published, however there’s not a lot of custom offers for readers and will need better ways to choose what content they want to receive from a particular author. For example, you can subscribe to my lifestream and get everything I publish/share (like drinking from a fire hose) or you can decide what sources of media you’d like to receive and subscribe to those only (like drinking from a few hoses). I’d like to see subscribers be able to create their own customized notifications from authors. There needs to be better simplification, choices, and aggregation of notifications.
Amplify
Since a lot of people are publishing a lot of great stuff, there’s more opportunity to amplify and share that great content with others. This happens when you vote a webpage up (like on Digg), leave a comment on a blog, ‘retweet’ on Twitter, and ‘favorite’ a photo in Flickr or video in YouTube. However, where the amplification really makes a difference is when the amplifier shares it with their community. This is how great content begins to make a difference. Forcing word of mouth just won’t work. Publish great stuff and it’ll be amplified. The tools to do so have made it easy.
Blogging
Some have wondered if the traditional website and even blogs are dying. I don’t know. There’s always a place for them. For example, both are great places to host a lifestream! 
However, publishing has gotten faster and more concise (see Twitter) and longer in-depth content is on the decline (see blogs). A symptom of the microwave generation? Maybe. I don’t believe blogging will go away any time soon. Some of us just may have to take a little longer to come full circle.
So what do you see for 2009 when it comes to publishing content online? Where do you see yourself going; and how will you get there?
