Now that the new year is here, the blogosphere has been looking forward and back to see what has worked and what hasn't.

I feel like social media is in an incredible growth - companies are dedicating people to this effort, consumers are giving and getting more feedback, and new technologies are making it easier to "reach out and touch someone".

So what's going to happen next?

Here Forrester Research looks back on what they said about social media in 2008. I think it's amazing that they got so many things right, especially the explosion of micromedia such as Twitter.

Peter Kim, formerly of Forrester Research compiled a handy pdf composed of predictions made in December made by knowledgeable social media people such as David Armano, Jason Falls, and Ann Handley.

Charlene Li, of the Altimeter Group, predicts that the openness of social media will go exclusive, with people finding ways to create private social networks, such as Diamond Lounge, a "luxury dating site for successful professionals".

One prediction, from Mindsalt Design, points to the success of microblogging, saying that "time snippets will replace time slots". This idea would be a shift in marketing, moving media buyers more and more towards efforts that will not try to hold any consumer's attention for more than seconds.

SearchEngineWatch predicts that the openness of social media will cause people to filter their behavior "as if their mother is watching". Personally, I think this is relevant for job seekers, but not for teenage Myspacers.

Also, ReadWriteWeb, briefly looks back at their 2008 predictions and what 2009 will bring. It's really interesting to see what different people at RWW predicted similiarly and differently from each other.

Now, as for "The Biggest Threat Around"? I find that lately I've been writing many posts pointing to the usefulness and necessity for the use of social media, but many have been talking about the "echo" in social media conversations made up of a bunch of people like me who love it and need no convincing. Why the need for convincing? Steve Radick writes here on the scariness of social media. If you have so much openness, where are the boundaries? Where is the heirarchy? Definitely a good read.