In his second annual predictions piece, CrownPeak Technology's VP of sales and marketing highlights the trends that developed in interactive marketing in '06, and formulates guesses for '07.

Welcome to 2007.

Editor Tina Brown has a great quote where she says that "cyberspace is populated by pundits on speed who get it wrong as much as they get it right. It's just that they type so much they are bound to nail a story from time to time."

Well, in the spirit of a ton of typing -- and perhaps a bit too much eggnog -- I thought I would offer up my second annual set of predictions for us as online marketers in 2007. But before I jump into my 2007 predictions, let's grade how I fared on my top 10 2006 predictions.

My top 10 digital marketing predictions for 2006:

#1: Software delivered over the internet goes mainstream (Grade: A+)
I think it's safe to say I got this right even though it wasn't terribly prescient. Microsoft, Oracle, Google and Yahoo! are barreling head-first into this space.  

#2: Google expands AdSense to provide digital ad management and reporting (Grade: C)
I really thought they would offer the online marketer the ability to manage their own ad inventory and provide for ad management tools. They actually went in a different direction, offering more optimization and conversion tools.

#3: Podcasting (both audio and video) explodes in 2006 (Grade: A)
If you didn't hear, YouTube got sold this year for a jillion dollars. Again, this prediction wasn't terribly risky-- but I think it really did explode this year. Still, no one company has built the perfect user-side killer app yet, and so our parents still aren't subscribing to podcasts. iTunes dominates, but is still clunky. The Zune and Windows Media had promised podcasting capabilities, but then canned it at the last minute. Maybe the next version will have it.

#4: New and improved analytics solutions emerge (Grade A)
I look at the new and improved WebTrends products and their recent acquisitions, as well as new entrants that are skyrocketing such as Eloqua and the trend is clear here. On-demand analytics solutions that focus on eMarketing solutions are really due for explosive growth.

#5: Search marketing continues to be huge-- but look beyond Google (Grade: C)
This one surprised me. I really expected Yahoo and Microsoft to have their act together here, but it just hasn't happened. Google still continues to dominate here. Yahoo has offered some new interfaces to its SEM management tools, but that's about it. And we didn't see the emergence of some of the smaller players like I thought might happen. The best new bid management tool of 2006 was Salesforce.com's new Google management integration.    

#6: Web companies give ad agencies a run for their money (Grade: B)
I'm going to give myself a "B" here not because I have any concrete proof, but from every article I've read it's been a fantastic year for interactive agencies. Every one I talk with is busier than they've ever been, and all focused on site re-designs, landing pages and implementing metrics-based programs for online marketing.

#7: Product placement and advertising appear in Web 2.0 apps (Grade: C+)
It hasn't really exploded as I thought it might, but if you haven't seen the screenshot floating around of the FireFox browser with every conceivable plugin installed, it's definitely worth a quick search. And certainly every analysis of the YouTube acquisition came this year with the caveat "..if they can figure out the product placement or advertising model..."

#8: We're all publishers in 2006 (Grade B+)
Whether it's the RSS feed, the HTML, the blog posting, the podcast or the video, it's all about the different formats of content, and getting it quickly and easily to its destination in a timely fashion.

#9: The time-shifted world is coming-- linear broadcast is dead (Grade: A+)
I think I nailed this one. The "TiVo-lifestyle" combined with downloadable video has completely shifted the way we consume media, especially television-based media. I never expected that Microsoft would already have television shows and movies available for download (legally) through the XBox 360.

#10: 2006-- the beginning of the end of look and feel on the web (Grade: Incomplete)
I think the jury is still out on this, but with content availability becoming much more important than the actual website, I think the trend is still there. I'd continue to look for the ability to publish to multiple formats much more important than getting the table pixel size right on my home page.

So, let's see... overall I score about a B -- not including my incomplete -- and let's be honest: We never include our incomplete's, right?

So, without further ado… let me give you my predictions for the interactive industry in 2007.