With the end of the naughts, it is once again time to grade predictions from last year.

1) Second Life will return to steady growth and have a shockingly good 2009

I defined “shockingly” as 50% growth and as James Au points out, Second Life saw an almost precisely 50% growth in active users. Dead on and a good start.
1 for 1

2) Another Republican Senator leaves his party to become an independent, largely caucusing with Senate Democrats.

Awfully nice of Senator Arlen Specter to help me out on this one. I sense a trend.
2 for 2

3) Microsoft gets its shit together

While MS is getting flack for some recent moves, they did make efforts to slim down, Bing nearly doubled MS search share, and Windows 7 has outsold any previous MS operating system release. The roll continues.
3 for 3

4) Across the industry, 2009 global recorded music sales contract by low single digit percentages, pulled down by double digit physical sales drops but buoyed by large digital gains.

Alas, I can’t find this stat yet, so will leave this unscored for now.
3 for 3

5) Linden Lab gets acquired

Oops. Still surprised by this.
3 for 4

6) Fiber-to-the-home becomes part of the economic stimulus/economic recovery package

ARRA contained nearly $40 billion in broadband stimulus, with FTTH part of the overall mix. Back on track.
4 for 5

7) New models for innovation, entrepreneurship, and education emerge during the downturn

While Y Combinator continues to spawn successes and we’ve also witnessed an explosion of Hacker Spaces, sadly I don’t think either really captures the prediction. Damn.
4 for 6

8) Israel learns that there must be a balance between legitimate national security concerns and its moral responsibilities to those it governs

While the recently announced moratorium on new settlements is definitely a great step, exceptions seem to abound. Fail.
4 for 7

9) Something completely new in the web, social space will successfully launch in 2009

I set the bar pretty high for this one, but it’s hard not to point at four square. Sure, it’s resurrected Dodge Ball, but the real-world MMO/leveling/achievement elements are new. Back into the win column.
5 for 8

10) I will travel less in 2009 than I did in 2008

Amazingly, despite spending a ton of time on the road with EMI, my actual mileage went down slightly for 2009. Now to keep that trend going this year!
6 for 9

With one prediction left unscored, my 2009 total is 6 for 9 correct, or 0.667. This compares favorably to previous scores of 0.600, 0.500, 0.500, 0.600 and 0.600 for 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, with an overall average of 57% for one year predictions, which isn’t too bad.

Predictions for 2010 coming soon!