Click here for list of nominees.

It seems the rule for tech predictions is that anyone you thought might get acquired (Digg, Twitter, Tumblr, Six Apart etc) didn’t. ReadWriteWeb predicted a number of these start-ups would get acquired but they didn’t plus they thought Facebook user numbers would go into decline (not yet). John Battelle predicted a large amount of corporate activity such as aQauntive getting spun out, MySpace getting spun out and a battle for Facebook, all of which failed to occur (although he did spot that Facebook would struggle with social ads).

Christopher Null and Don Reisinger both incorrectly predicted that the Wii would run out of steam. Christopher Null followed that one up with predictions that the HD war would continue (victory to Blu-Ray) and that we’d finally upgrade to Vista (still holding out). However he also saw that the PS3 would remain in third place and that Google would fail to buy the 700MHz spectrum. Don Reisinger, on the other hand, enters the running for the wooden spoon with predictions that DRM would end (still here), Google to take mobile by storm (not yet) and the rise of IPTV (growing but hardly broken through).

Louis Gray is another contender in the wooden spoon race with predictions that Google would beat Techmeme (not yet), Facebook buys Digg, eBay sells StumbleUpon, Twitter adds photos/videos, a major browser ships with Ad Block and that Robert Scoble leaves Fast Company. His solitary clear success was that video blogging would remain unprofitable.

The winner of the tech category made 17 bold predictions for 2008. While he got a lot of them wrong like Google launching the GDrive, PS3 outselling the Xbox, Digg getting bought and Yahoo making a bid for Twitter, he got at least eight spot on. These were that there would be a battle to buy at least part of Yahoo, Blu Ray would defeat HD, that the Wii would continue to dominate, Flickr to intro video (but not compete with YouTube), Google Open Social to fail to excite, social aggregation to be huge (with FriendFeed continuing to grow and Facebook doing more aggregation this is at least half right), Microsoft starting to hype Windows 7 and NBC coming on to iTunes. In all an impressive performance. Congratulations to MG Siegler at Paris Lemon. An inscribed quaich is on its way to you now.

Pundit Awards awards, predictions, pundits, tech

As announced last week, News Pundits is running awards for the top pundits who made the most accurate 2008 predictions. For the remainder of this year we will be publishing a list of nominees for each category. If you want to nominate another pundit please do so by providing a link in the comments below.

Below are the nominations for the tech category.

John Battelle - Search Blog

Allen Stern - CenterNetworks

Garett Rogers - ZDNet

Tim Bajarin - PC Mag

MG Siegler - ParisLemon

Martin Veitch - The Inquirer

Richard McManus - ReadWriteWeb

Marshall Kirkpatrick - ReadWriteWeb

Josh Catone - ReadWriteWeb

Emre Sokullu - ReadWriteWeb

Sean Amirati - ReadWriteWeb

Charles Knight - AltSearchEngines

Mark Anderson - reported in Information Week

Louis Gray - LoiusGray.com (Louis reviews his on predictions here)

Christopher Null - Yahoo Tech

Michael Malone - Silicon Insider

Don Reisinger - The Digital Home

Steven Fisher - Techno Sailor

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan - Hip Mojo

Nick Douglas - Valley Wag

Nancy Weil - PC World

Dion Hinchcliffe - Social Computing

As you can see it is a long list. There are some highly accurate unobvious predictions in there but there are also some stonking misses (e.g. End of DRM, WSJ to go free and Wii falls flat in its face etc). Competition for the wooden spoon could be tight.

Pundit Awards awards, predictions, pundits, tech