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 Prognostications are the last can of chicken noodle soup in every writer's cupboard, and we have a bowl of them for you. Editor's Note: Ah, the New Year. And with it, fresh wind. Thanks, Dave. Think you know which way the wind is blowing this year? Let us know in the comment section, and don't be afraid of being, well, windy. So it's 2008 in WebProNews land, where the weather today matches Tom Brady's jersey number (that's a 12 for you non-sports fans.) The start of the year represents a good time to guess what might happen over the course of the year. As rough as webmasters thought they had it with Google over paid links in 2007, we think Google will play rougher in 2008. Their approved acquisition of DoubleClick in the US needs only similar approval from the European Union to be completed. When that happens, and we think it will, imagine Google making the same PageRank adjustments to sites that display graphical ads to what they deem as low-quality destinations. Webmasters will long for the days when it was just text links getting this treatment. Here is something we think won't happen - Yahoo isn't going anywhere. Not to Microsoft. Not to Google. Not to Martin Sorrell and WPP, or anyone else. Being second in search market share and having a display ad business that can bring brand names to its pages may not be sexy, but it brings revenue to Yahoo. Another thing we won't see - Powerset launching to the public. The natural language search engine lost its CEO in November 2007. Though they offered us a peek at the site months ago, Powerset never followed through. Natural language search is hard, kids. Lots of favorable press hype can't counter that. Enough of the won'ts. We think we will see the first efforts of disenchanted Hollywood writers show up on the Internet as they turn to creating content they control, instead of a studio.
But don't expect a two and a half hour summer blockbusters showing up on the web. We think a short series of 7 to 8 minute episodes with a name star participating, and sufficient financial backing to deliver high-quality production of the shows, could lead to someone becoming the first Tony Gilroy of the Internet. We also expect Microsoft to reorg its Net brands again and shuffle people up, down, in, and out of MSN and Windows Live. The company is stuck with two brands to promote. It makes more sense for Microsoft to promote Windows Live than MSN as a name, so we think the transition to one distinct identity should happen in 2008. Though it's popular now, Facebook gets its comeuppance in 2008. Someone somewhere will adopt Facebook's old model of requiring .edu email addresses for membership in a social networking site, build up some buzz, and start grabbing members before they get to Facebook. We now predict this article will come to an end. Hey, it came true! If you have a prediction, drop it into the comments.
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28 Things Didn't Happen In 2007
 By Jason Lee Miller
A lot of predictions were made about 2007, just like every other year. Some came true, some didn't. Here's a list of what didn't happen. Vertical search and niche social networks didn't take off Well, there were many copycats, but not a lot of breakthrough players. Vertical search? Only if Google's integration of Universal Search counts. Niche networks? Though I predicted the beginning of this era, very little has happened. People are still flocking to the broad-appeal social networks, but that still could change. RSS didn't go mainstream A significant portion of the tech elite predicted this would be the year RSS went mainstream. And, well, it really didn't, despite Vista, which people are ditching in favor of a return to their beloved Windows XP. Ask anybody not closely following developments on the Web if they know what an RSS feed is. Bet you'll be surprised at how few have heard of one. But that too, may change in the coming year. You know, again. Read More...
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Block Google? Our featured post today comes from Ozzman. He needs your help blocking Google's crawlers from crawling content that is secured from the general public. There have been a few people telling him about adding things to the robots.txt file of his site. Do you think you can help Ozzman out? Tell us your thoughts at WebProWorld. Subscribe to the WebProWorld Feed 
Can we use robots.txt for this or you may suggest any other better treatment for this? If Google crawls any secure information from a website content and shows it in search engines then what can we do to let this information disappeared from Google search results? Your cooperation is appreciated in advance.
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