It’s getting close to the end of the year, so in what’s now become an annual tradition next week we will make our predictions for 2010. Today, we’re pre-empting that post with a look back at last year’s predictions. Did they come true? Let’s find out.

Online Video - Online video has progressed dramatically in 2009. Many free online services now offer video that compares favourably with the quality that you would expect sitting in front of your television at home.  Broadcast programming is starting to find its way to the TV, via the web.

People are becoming increasingly comfortable watching video on mobile devices, new research shows, particularly in public places, while commuting, or while at work — that is, all places where a 42″ plasma screen is not likely to be available.

Streaming video has not taken off as expected but we still expect this to be a growth area. Services like QIK now available on iPhone make ad-hoc interviews incredibly easy to do. This technology has fantastic potential for elearning in the near future.

Twitter - Twitter continued to grow in popularity over the course of 2009.  It’s not uncommon to see a television advert that encourages its customers to follow them on Twitter.  It has really gone mainstream.

The fundamentally open model of Twitter created a new kind of information network and it has largely outgrown the concept of personal status updates. Twitter helps us share and discover what’s happening now among all the things, people, and events you care about.

Browser War - Internet Explorer 8 arrived in March and Microsoft continues to dominate the market.   Last year we were using Flock the social browser. This year Google’s Chrome has continued to go from strength to strength and with the release of Chrome extensions in late 2009, there are now very few reasons not to adopt Chrome for day to day browsing. Its speed over other browsers makes the web a much more enjoyable experience.

Mobile Technology - The iPhone continues to dominate with sales of over 1 million units in the UK alone.  The competition has some catching up to do. The iPhone app store continues to be its not so secret weapon. The device is strong but it’s the software and services that push it beyond the competition. We are starting to see organisations role out iPhone’s across their workforce. The collaboration and learning on demand opportunities are endless.

Netbooks - It seems everyone and their dog is bringing out a netbook. Every manufacturer is in the race to produce the itsy-bitsiest, teeny-weeniest, under power-dest laptop on the market. Apple is the lone holdout, steadfastly refusing to commit to any plans to join the netbook party.The devices are fantastic for travel, when you’re on the move or just want to tap into something quickly.

Learning Nuggets and Semantic Search Technologies - These two have been grouped together not because they are the same thing but personalisation of elearning content still seems somewhat off. Adoption of web 2.0 technologies has been slower than expected.

What about your predictions – how did they fare?