Having been tagged by Andy Beal, who was tagged by Mashable, I went to my sacred corner of the house where the incense cones, pieces of shells, gems and things my kids have made for me are gathered, and whipped out my crystal ball and sweetgrass. Not to be confused with the other of kind of “grass”. The kind I use chases away bad spirits, so I can focus.

Okay, that was me, about 20 years ago. Now, I’m just sitting on the boring couch with my laptop and a Golden Retriever who keeps begging to go pee.

My top 5 predictions for 2007 are:

1. Everybody will get mad and throw their laptops out the window, screaming, “I’m mad as hell and can’t take it anymore.” And then they’ll log off Second Life and come back to reality.

2. Google will peak out at $1000 a share or create new reasons to need a) search, b) the internet, c) TV, d) ad revenue, e) blogs, f) get jobs, g) get analytics, h) reasons to look at Mars, i) reasons to look at your house on Earth, j) don’t forget the Moon, k) a shopping cart, l) research, m) find banned books, n) get the news, o) play games, p) find a mate, q) share pictures of you, r) play music, s) create documents and spreadsheets, t) make videos and embarress your friends, u) learn Shakespeare, v) sell stuff, w) train a pigeon, x) get mentalplexed y) download stuff you don’t need z) and tell them what else you want that they didn’t get to yet.

I want a pony.

3. There will be a polarization in social media where two groups will form. Look for more niche sites and huge communities where like-minded folks will socialize and do business with each other. Do you want to do business with people who send anonymous porn spam to your site, or vote your domain off or blacklist you because of the industry you work in? There will be a site for you to do that. And then some sites for the rest of us with our brains inside our heads, and not up your you-know-what.

4. Next year’s Time Person of the Year will not be “You”.

5. Every mobile phone voicemail will be preceded with an advertisement. Did I just give Google another idea?

I need a farm, to go with that pony.

My other ones:

1. Google will hire Bill Slawski just to shut him up so we don’t get to know anything anymore.

2. Danny Sullivan will start another search engine industy forums and offer Google big sums of money to get Bill back.

3. MyblogLogOrkut who?

4. “So Give Us Pause” - dated 2005-05-22 - Fantomaster, turns out to be none other than Rip Van Winkle.

5. We learn that A-list and B-list were never truly the mark of a hot woman blogger. It’s our D-cup that counts.

To continue the tradition, I tag SugarRae, Todd Malicoat, Michael Gray (and when Michael recovers from his Aussie holiday, he and Scottie’s InSearchofStuff)Â I purposely sought out courageous, humorous, outspoken folks who aren’t afraid to think outside the box. This is what 2007 will be all about.

Seth Godin has written about his feelings about what’s happened to his ZList in a new blog post, Zlist update. He is “amazed, then delighted and then disturbed by the response“.

I revisited the Squidoo Zlist, now prefaced with a new statement that reads, in part:

Please don’t vote people down just because they’re above you in the rankings. Please don’t add a blog to this list that’s not relevant (hey, you can start your own list… it’s free. Just click that button on the top right of the page). I know this sounds trite, but here you go:

Please click as if someone were watching. Do the right thing and the world comes out ahead. Thanks.

In his followup post, he speaks to the core of what was frustrating me.

Several bloggers worked hard to game the list I posted, instructing folks to vote other (worthy) blogs down. That’s sad.

Several bloggers added their blogs even though they were clearly irrelevant to the point of the list.

And many bloggers got their feelings hurt because if there’s a list, and you’re competitive, then being near the bottom of the list is a bad thing.

In all honesty, I didn’t bother to look to see where my blog now sits or even to see if it is still on the list at all.

The day the list came out, I was shocked and thrilled to find my blog on it, and while the list was still fresh and not attacked by darts, my blog was always in the top 50 somewhere. Three days into it, I don’t know what the hell happened and I could no longer stand to watch the proceedings. You can become totally convinced that you have enemies online when you see any list that rates and scores your website on an hourly basis.

My enemy may be nothing more than competition, or campaigns to move other blogs upwards, but by then, as Seth points out, what started out as his intent to point to undernoticed blogs that he chose has been exploited as a new sort of competition, where anyone can play and anyone can ruin the party.

He’s toying with shutting it down. I don’t blame him for that.

It’s not that lists are bad. It’s that they’re sometimes exploited or marketed in ways that create an unintended result, or even cause harm. I LOVE to point to site discoveries and cheer on good works. They deserve the praise and recognition. I attach to their feed. In some cases, I refer them to clients or friends to friends. It’s natural. Not forced. My choice.

I have control over my approach, however. When Seth created his list, it may have been a smooth idea to help show people what a Squidoo looks like. Nothing wrong with that. He gave control of that list to other people, however, and by doing that, all sorts of negative human responses to opportunity took over. It’s natural to want to see your favorite blog move up, but somebody else’s must come down. It’s no longer “Seth’s choices” at this point. I’m not even sure the list ever was.

I don’t want to know whatever happened to my blog on his list. Getting on a Seth list at all was major cool. I danced around the living room and blabbed about it to a family who has no freaking clue who Seth is, nor do they care.

I bet there are days when he wishes more people felt that way sometimes.

It will look suspiciously like one though…

I’m going to copy the idea and remind those of you who have been a fan for less than a week of some of the other things I wrote here, that either I like or I received the most feedback on.

First the Fun

MsDewey Speaks Her Mind and Dances For My Husband

When Did Blogging Become Like Sex?

Sex Goddess Bump and Other Ulterior Motive SEO Things

If Your Homepage Could Only Talk

The Unbearable Fun of User Centered Design

Family

Football

Why Are Baseball Pants Inside the Freezer?

On Topic (for once)

Blogs Are Like French Fries

It’s Not All About You, Mr. Search Engine

Where are the Technical Industries Women Bloggers?

The Extreme Human Power Behind Blogs Is Not For Sale

Design Questions Every Website Should Address for Success

How Certain Information Improves Credibility and Retains Web Site Visitors’ Interest (So They Won’t Click-Off)

Affordable Website Design Education For The Non-Desperate

Website Design, SEO and Usability Laws or Beat Your Own Drum?

Curiosity

Why Does Time Magazine’s Choice of “You” Bother Me?

Sadly, Done With Digg

Ms. Dewey Search Engine and World Usability Day 2006

Happy New Year!

I just put up our New Year’s Logo at Cre8asiteforums.

Here’s to a peaceful, prosperous, playful, perfect, persuasive, pivotal, pleasant, poetic, pleasurable, positive, powerful, premium, prized, productive, promising, and purposeful 2007.

Okay, okay, already. I get the A-list, B-list, and now Z-list meme stuff. (What the heck is a “meme”? Where did that word suddenly come from?) Why do link games remind me so much of “Spin The Bottle”?

The latest thing to know about is Revenge of the ‘Z-Lister’ by Mack Collier. His intent is to help promote possibly undiscovered blog gems and introduce them. Very nice. There are millions of blogs. Sifting through them to find gold and diamonds is time consuming.

So, he suggests that he make a little list of his choices. Then, you come along with your blog, copy his list to your blog and add your own choices. Then, you open it up to others, who will copy your list, add their favorite blogs and so on and so forth.

Sooner or later the bottle may point to your blog.

Seth Godin took the idea and made a ZList out of his list. In the past few days I’ve watched my blog do the Cha Cha up and down that list, get points, lose points and otherwise depress me or get me excited, depending on how you vote.

There’s lists and copied lists and lists about lists all over the place.

Is anyone reading these lists?

Seth’s (at this moment) has 415 links. I’m curious to know how many people scroll down lists, click on every blog, or the ones that look interesting. People must have a hell of a lot of extra time on their hands to do this.

I’m happy as heck to link to you, but I’m not comfortable throwing up a lot of links just for the sake of “linking” or “link bait” or creating meme’s or whatever the next thing is called. I have a Suggested Sites page of blogs I like or recommend.

I love to find you and write about you. Like the Stone Temple blog, who showed up on my MyBlogLog stats and I followed the popcorn trail to his site.

I kinda like just walking around and picking out my own stuff.

Gosh, I’m stubborn, aren’t I?

I was getting near the age where I could legally vote in my country, when Gerald Ford became President of the United States. I didn’t understand much. I remember reading about Nixon and Watergate in Newsweek.

He was President for only 29 months, having taken over for Nixon in 1974. I had liked President Ford, mostly because he seemed so calm and I liked his smile. I was a teenager. Those things mattered.

At the age of 93, he has passed from this life. He’ll be honored for serving this country during a terrible time of upheavals, mistrust, and the ending of the Vietnam war.

CNN reports, as well as many others.