Instead new tools and technologies will be produced that will understand who we are and what we do (for example this will include geotagging technology), which will inform the “super network” (aggregations of smaller networks like Facebook and MySpace etc that we see today) and enable automatic maintainence of our social sphere. As such there will be less effort required ‘keeping socially current’.

Another, partially related prediction I have for 2010 is the focus on network segmentation. This is currently in its infancy and requires greater controls based on the needs of the individual user, what they use the network for etc. In 2010 it will not be acceptable to use Linkedin due to their superiour control over business networks and facebook for personal networks. In order to get to the top of the tree networks will fragment its services and provide these controls to suit a wide range of uses.

We’ll have all discovered that the time it takes to separate the small amount of wheat from the huge amount of social media chaff just isn’t worth it. Most importantly, we’ll begin to understand that the information offered on these sites is almost always self-serving and repetitive. And, we’ll finally realize that the only people benefiting from social media are those selling us on the idea of wasting our own time on it.

When consumers started to shop online, marketers followed. When we started blogging, started reviewing products, started sharing information and opinions in a social space, marketing followed us there too. Now the Web is mobile. Guess what that means?

Not all marketing changes are driven by technology– you’re right about that David. But when technology changes peoples lives, the message has to keep up with the medium.

Last week, one of my most trusted thought leader friends @GenslerLfstyle called to my attention Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore’s use of the term “attention economy” in his excellent Web trends prediction piece http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/03/cashmore.web.trends.2010/.

That our time and attention is a highly valuable commodity is a critical concept. In 2010 we’re going to find more expeditious ways to use social networking tools to get at the news and information that’s most essential and relevant to each of us. Faster and smarter.

IMHO, it’s a common misconception that this painfully slow transition — away from the mass-media era — is all about technology. It isn’t. It’s about interaction and conversation — conducted in a human voice.

More than a decade after the “Cluetrain Manifesto” book was written, there are people who are still in denial, or simply just don’t get it. The legacy Advertising and PR agency mindset apparently can’t adapt to a new way of thinking about the same old problem.

I’m ready for a “Marketing Ice Age” in 2010 — let the dinosaurs become fossil fuel.