The year is already 1/12 over!  How did that happen?   I’m a little late to the game with my tech predictions for this year but I figured better late than never.   Last year I batted around a .400.  Let see if this year is any better.  Here are my predictions for the coming year:

Photo: Matt Dunham/AP

There will be a large-scale botnet attack

Hackers have recently been mounting large-scale attacks on major corporations by using botnets.  Here’s how it works:   A botnet is a network of computers that are infected by a virus.  Hackers use this virus to take control of all the infected computers’ computing power and attack a specific target.

Hacktivist groups like Anonymous have recently made headlines by using botnets to attack organizations that criticized and withdrew support of Wikileaks.  Just a few days ago they were in the news again, threatening Egypt’s government for blocking internet access to protestors.  With more and more computers becoming infected, the botnets are growing exponentially in computing power.  I think we’ll see some major attacks this year, possibly to financial or government organizations.

Twitter will release a do-it-yourself ad service

This past year we finally saw an effort by Twitter to make some revenue.  Analysts say that their ad services may make as much as $250 million revenue by 2012.  Their challenge is going to be proving that these promoted tweets are actually effective, since Facebook offers the same service with a bigger user base.  Twitter has enough of a niche market that if they introduce something similar to Facebook and Google’s do it yourself ad services, they could start to be competitive.

Myspace will be bought, possibly by a recording company

Myspace is hurting badly.  It recently laid off about 50% of its workforce and continues to struggle to find a niche in the Facebook-dominated social space.  One thing that Myspace seems to have over Facebook is a good interface for sharing music.  Myspace continues to be a site for musicians looking to share their music and they still have recognition.  With some rebranding and significant downsizing, they must be useful to someone!

From tonymadrid on Flickr

iPhone on Verizon will crush Android sales

The iPhone is coming to Verizon in February and analysts predict anywhere from 12 to 25 million will sell in 2011.  That does not bode well for Android, which was able to compete with the iPhone in market share partially because of AT&T’s exclusivity deal with Apple. However, HTC and Motorola have some pretty nifty new Android phones coming out mid-year that will definitely be competitive, so we’ll have to wait and see!

Android Honeycomb will be beautiful, but iPad 2 will come out in the summer and dominate tablet sales

CES 2011 was a blizzard of tablets.  It seemed almost every single maker had their own tablet to announce.  Google will be showing off its new tablet operating system, Android Honeycomb, at a press event on February 2^nd.

This is the operating system that many of the tablets at CES will be running and I can’t wait to see what it looks like.  We haven’t heard anything about iPad 2 yet, but the first generation has been out for so long with little to no competition that even with all the shiny new Android tablets hitting the market soon, I think iPad sales will continue to dominate in 2011.

Net neutrality will make front page headlines

Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers should put no restrictions on the type of content we receive and the methods in which we receive it.  Proponents for net neutrality argue that telecom companies are trying to enact a tiered model where the consumer would have to pay a different amount to access different data.

This model is ultimately harmful to the consumer because telecom companies would be able to remove competition to their services by controlling the flow of content and creating artificial scarcity.  This issue hasn’t had much effect on the mainstream media yet, but I think we’ll be reading a lot more about it this year, especially with the recent Comcast-NBC deal.

Yahoo will continue to lay off workers

I had this prediction written in early January and then it came true.  Yahoo announced more layoffs this month and I predict we’ll see more of that in 2011.  I also wouldn’t be surprised if Carol Bartz is out of there by December.

What do you think we’ll see if 2011? Angry Birds on gaming consoles? Apple shutting down it’s Ping service? Share your predictions in the comments below!

Having great content on your site is only half the battle.  You’ve built your blog.  You have your posts. Now you want people to actually be able to find your site.  I’ve shown you how to get your own website, but another important part of building your site is optimizing it for search engines.  Your website is like a needle in a haystack, and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of increasing traffic to your page from search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

There are entire companies dedicated to providing SEO, and thousands of guides out there, but I have selected my favorite tools and tips to help increase your traffic from search engines.

1. SeoQuake

SeoQuake is one of the most popular Firefox plugins for measuring SEO.  It allows you to see many important SEO parameters of your website, like Google pagerank and incoming/outgoing links.

2. Hubspot Website Grader

For the more advanced user, Hubspot’s Website Grader does a complete analysis of your website, grades it, and gives you suggestions on how to improve your SEO.

3. All in One SEO Pack

This is one of the most popular WordPress plugins for SEO.  It will automate your keywords, post titles, and include meta tags for all your pages.  For more WordPress plugins, see Mashable’s 20 of the Best SEO Plugins for WordPress.

4. WP Auto Tagger

The WP Auto Tagger automatically tags all your posts with recommended keywords based on search engine data from Yahoo.  This is a great way to increase traffic to specific posts on your website or blog.

5. SEOmoz Tools

SEOmoz has an entire collection of SEO tools for your website, from keyword rank tracking to a site explorer that can explore a site’s backlinks and top pages.

6. Social Mention

Social Mention scans various social media platforms for mentions of you or your brand.  This is a good way to check to see whether you are successfully making you and your work visible.

7. Backlink Checker

This tool will show you all backlinks that link to your website.  This is a good way to see what other websites are linking to you.

8. Keyword Discovery

Keyword Discovery can tell you the search phrases people use to find products and services, as well as the search terms that drive traffic to other websites that are similar to yours.

9. Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Google AdWords Keyword Tool lets you see the volume for different keyword searches.  This is a good tool for selecting keywords to use in your post titles and tags to boost your SEO.

10. SEO Browser

This website will show you exactly how a search engine views your page.  This is helpful for artists that use a lot of images in their posts so that they can make sure everything is tagged correctly.

11., 12., 13., Search Engine Land, Problogger.net, SEO Book

These are all good blogs about search engine news, blogging, and basic SEO.

14. YSlow

YSlow analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages.

15. Google Search-based keyword tool

Another keyword search based on Google queries.

16. Google Analytics

Track the changes you are making with Google Analytics to see what changes have the biggest effect on your traffic, or whether they even have any effect at all.

With all the mainstream media’s attention on social media, there are a lot of eager people jumping into the game without knowing what they are doing.  While that is one way to learn, and don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate of learning through experimentation, it is also useful to learn from other people’s mistakes.  Here are some common mistakes that I see every day:

1. Assuming Content Will Build an Audience

Building an audience has three basic steps: (1) The initial hook, (2) Drawing in with engaging content, and (3) Bringing them back with the promise of more.

This takes lots of time and lots of work.  No one just publishes a book and instantly becomes famous (except maybe JK Rowling), and content on the web is not different.  People aren’t going to look at your work just because online content is easier to access.

True, good content is by far the most important thing to have when trying to build an audience, but it by no means will build you an audience.

Just three days after filling the house at Boston’s Symphony Hall, where averaged priced seats run at $100 a pop, world renowned violinist Joshua Bell performed 6 classical pieces for 43 minutes at the L’Enfant Plaza metro stop in Washington, DC as part of an experiment organized by The Washington Post.  Out of the 1,097 people that walked by, only one person stopped to listen to his music.

What does this tell you?  You won’t find success with talent alone.

2. Sacrificing Usability for Design

Artists generally want a unique looking web presence.  We don’t like templates, we don’t like anything mainstream and we don’t like being forced to look like something.  That is why I love artists, because we reject the status quo and innovate instead.  But what we have to be careful of is pushing the envelope too far.  If you are going to go with something unconventional, make sure you still have the 6 Elements of a Killer Website.

3. Not Using Analytics

What do you want out of being in social media?  Blog subscribers?  Traffic?  More sales?  Don’t just blindly trust that your practices are actually helping you reach your goals.  Whatever you decide your metrics to be, make sure you are tracking them.  Google Analytics is a great tool for tracking progress (and it has easy integration with WordPress).

4. Inconsistent Branding on Multiple Platforms

Artists want to be as prolific as possible, which means being present on all the various social media platforms.  These various profiles should not be managed as separate entities, but rather as a comprehensive representation of you as an artist.  While different platforms have different purposes, a viewer should have a similar experience and be able to access similar content on all of your social media profiles.

For those of you who don’t know, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the biggest consumer electronics trade show of the year, held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Last year was kind of a disappointment, with most companies feeling the effects of the downturned economy and not showing many exciting products.

But this year CES is back with shiny new gadgets. You probably won’t be able to afford them, and they probably won’t actually be available until next year, but still, they are shiny new gadgets!!

So I’ve picked out some of my favorites and I’m going to tell you what they do or why they are cool, without using the words Core 2 Duo, OLED display, or HDMI.

It’s easy to find ourselves stuck in the grind of everyday.  We get into the same weekly routine and take little time to think about what we are actually doing (how many times have you thought to yourself: “Wow, where did the day/week/month go?”)

Are you growing?  Are you pushing yourself forward?  There is a question that I ask myself at the end of every week.  It is simple:

What did I learn last week?

The secret to moving forward, in life, in school, in a job, anywhere, is that you have to be constantly learning and growing, and be aware of that learning and growth.  Some things to think about when you ask yourself this question: