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It's that time of year where we try to make sense of the past and predict the future. The following are a few web related examples.

10 Web trends to watch in 2010

Top Digital Trends for 2010

Google’s 2009: A Glimpse of the Web’s Next Decade

A Year In Review: 2009 Social Marketing Trends

.net magazine 2009 Web Awards

The Decade's 14 Biggest Design Moments

Picturing the Past 10 Years

I joined Twitter to better understand the hype. As a Web Designer it's my job to understand new technologies and there's no better way to get the full picture than to become a true user (not a Web Designer claiming to be a user).

Some general observations after 200 tweets
Twitter is a constant flow of what people are doing and sharing. You can jump in or out at anytime. When you are in the flow it's real-time and you feel somewhat conected. When you are out of the flow you miss a moment in time and with things changing so quickly you don't miss much. Whatever is truly important flows over and appears on blogs and the rest of the web.

If you join be yourself, share your thoughts with some restraint (people are watching), don't try too hard, don't try to be witty, use it if it works with your lifestyle, respect other peoples tweets and followers, no need to bash other people's tweets. As my mother would say "If you have nothing good to say don't say anything at all" and just follow.

Twitter at it's best

• get the inside scoop on news or special offers not found elsewhere
• follow friends or people you admire (get the inside scoop on how they work)
• good information and links

Twitter at it's worst

• time consuming which means other things suffer
• your people may not be on Twitter
• useless information (I just had lunch)

Three ways I use it

• follow designers and others I consider virtual mentors whom I can learn from
• follow companies and services I use
• share my thoughts and doings more for myself than others

Three ways others use it

• promote websites, blogs, books or business
• seek feedback on ideas and designs or ask for answers
• venting emotions - anger, joy, boredom, overworked, etc.

You can find me on Twitter @andrew_mahoney

A review of Smashing Magazine - An online magazine for web designers and developers.

The Good

Smashing Magazine has current and relevant articles on web design related topics. They must scan the web (blogs and twitter) to see what the hot topics are and quickly craft a story. Are they experts on the subject matter? It's hard to tell. On many articles the authors are not well known names. The author of "The Roadmap To Becoming A Professional Freelance Web Designer" describes herself as "a 20 yr. old college student" so I'm not sure how much freelance experience she has. The following article was co-written by Jeremy Keith who is clealry and expert.

Good example - Misunderstanding Markup: XHTML 2/HTML 5 Comic Strip