Here are a few things that will happen to Twitter in my 2009 predictions:

• We will see the first noticeable increase in bot use

  You’ve probably seen the auto responders thanking you for following a person.  It’s going to get worse (way worse).  We’ve seen bots creep their way in chat rooms, IM sessions, video games, and you’ll see it happen in Twitter this year.  You’ll even see a company try to utilize a bot for customer service usage.  It will fail whale hardcore, it will gain some media attention, and ultimately scare other companies from adopting Twitter for customer service purposes.

• Early adopter exodus

  2009 will mark the beginning of the move to “the next thing”.  Face it, a large portion of Twitter’s user base is made up of marketers, media and PR folk, and bloggers.  When grandma gets her Twitter account set up this year, they’ll start looking for the next Social Media tool.  That’s not to say they won’t keep their account, but their usage will fall the way of Friendster in the next year.

• Facebook will cease to be interested in purchasing Twitter

  Remember the rumors of Facebook buying Twitter?  Facebook will have a “come to Jesus” moment, and realize they don’t need to buy Twitter’s user base, and they’ll focus on Facebook Connect (like they should).  Facebook isn’t doing all that well with their ad metrics, and I’d say their contextual algorithm needs more than a bit of work.  They really have no business trying to serve ads on Twitter, when they can’t correctly serve ads on, well, Facebook.

• Google finally buys Twitter near the end of 2009

  We’ll all breathe a collective sigh of relief when Google finalizes the deal near the end of 2009.  Google will introduce new ad serving tools which will fully utilize sentiment analysis.  Based upon an @username conversation being positive, negative, or neutral, the ad will change message.  Online marketers will collectively cry tears of joy.