AjaxNinja has posted some great predictions for 2008. It is an interesting list that would change the Web 2.0 landscape if they come true.

Could Google actually fail at something? Will we see the end of Yahoo and Ruby on Rails? Only time will tell.

* Google will incur consumer backlash and damage its public image, either by placing its own products at the top of Google search results and damaging the businesses that depend on Google search results or by violating the privacy of its customers for profit;

* Google’s acquisitions strategy will be publicly called into question if Google continues to make more dubious acquisitions (Jaiku, anyone?);

* Google Android will either piss veteran mobile developers off or open up mobile devices to a whole new generation of developers who have never done mobile development before;

* OpenSocial will fall flat on its ass if development doesn’t show some progress soon; it’s been two months since the announcement and Google has yet to produce any substantial developments; and

* Google Knol will not work.

Yahoo! is a company in full tailspin. Fortunately for Yahoo!, it still has more traffic than Google and Yahoo! mail still leads over Gmail; that’s where the good news ends. Yahoo’s strategy has been both confusing and unsuccessful; most of their deviations from their core services have been disasters.

Let me translate this: it means that Yahoo! has no strategy; they don’t know what the hell they’re doing; they’re spending money like crazy; and they’re praying that God strikes lightning upon one of their startups and creates the next YouTube. This is not the strategy of a brilliant company; this is the strategy of a company that is awash in cash (for the moment) but has no idea how to stay ahead of its competition.

I’ve already established that Yahoo! is on the decline, but the second half of my bold prediction for Yahoo! is that it ultimately ends up in the hands of Microsoft. The breakdown of search engine popularity of roughly Google 55%, Yahoo 20%, Live Search 14%.

Live Search can’t realistically compete with Google given that its service isn’t fundamentally better or more compelling than Google’s (in fact a recent study shows that Google is still the best at satisfying user queries), thus Microsoft needs to get its users from somewhere; why not buy out the falling star of online search, Yahoo? Or perhaps Microsoft will use its terrific desktop search platform to help expand Live Search online?

There is no reason for Microsoft not to buy out Yahoo, and I predict that Microsoft will begin positioning itself to acquire Yahoo in 2008.

I’ve always been annoyed by the RoR community, kind of like how I was annoyed by the ColdFusion community when I was first learning classic ASP. When I read about a hot, new technology that isn’t even thread-safe, I groan, roll my eyes, and say “oh God not this, again.” There’s more mouth than substance behind it, and the promise of RoR is quickly falling apart. The RoR honeymoon is over, and I predict the start of a slow, agonizing death for RoR in 2008.