Not that I'm good at this sort of thing, but here are some predictions for the upcoming year. I hope that you find them helpful. An important part of SEO is to anticipate the upcoming trends in the industry before they occur.1) Natural search optimization will grow as a market. That means even more SEO competition for target search terms. LIke anybody needed that!2) Many companies will turn to the Desktop Search business. Why? Think about how valuable it would be for a search engine or technology company to acquire 10 million users for its desktop tool? This will open up a new advertising medium: advertising on someone's personal desktop search toolbar, etc...3) Search engine's legal bills will skyrocket. The Geico vs. Google suit is just the a sentinel of things to come. The legal issues involve brands, which companies tend to take seriously, and the defendants (search engines) have deep pockets. 4) Keyword prices will keep climbing. The increasing complexity of search keyword phrases that web browsers use to search will boost SEO /PPC inventory. In other words, more people will search and more people will begin to use 3-5 word search queries.5) ROI measurements will begin to include branding info, latency info, and offline actions info. 6) More research will show the impact of SEM on branding, latency, and offline actions. Companies that spend thousands or even millions on SEM and SEO want to know exactly how that money helping them push their product or service.7) There will be a multitude of search-related technology acquisitions. Yahoo! partnered with X1 late last year, MSN recently acquired Lookout Software for improved E-mail search. This trend will continue throughout 20058) Pay-per-call will be offered by most major search engines. Text link advertising will become even more mainstream than it already is.