Happy Year of the Dragon everyone!

It seemed like 2011 disappeared faster than a discounted tablet on Black Friday. It certainly left its mark on the digital world. From a tech perspective, 2011 was the year that brought us the continued upsurge in all things mobile (such as smartphones, tablets and apps), the social media-fueled Arab Spring, the emergence of social commerce, the demise of Flash, the resurgence of tech IPOs (with LinkedIn, Zynga, Groupon and Pandora leading the way) and the untimely passing of Steve Jobs.

At the start of 2011, we made a few fearless predictions on what the year would bring. Let’s recap those prognostications to see how we fared:

We predicted that between the rise of video, social and data targeting, a new era of innovation will kick off in display advertising, raising CPMs and, for the first time in a long time, the interest of your average web surfer.

2011 did, in fact, bring renewed demand for online advertising from brands. So much so that eMarketer claimed that display advertising, which includes banner ads, rich media, sponsorships and video, is on a path to eclipse U.S. search ad spending by 2015. eMarketer expected total display ad spending to hit $12.33 billion in 2011 and predicts that spending will increase 78% over the next four years, reaching $22 billion by 2015, with online video driving much of that growth. The continued growth of the social display ad giant known as Facebook as well as early-stage ad innovators like Spongecell, Solve Media and DoubleRecall will only bolster the trend.

Lower bill of materials costs in the TV industry and Asian supplier evidence will come together to confirm that Apple is indeed planning to introduce a new age television set, possibly as early as 2012.

We were pretty spot on with this one too. The rumors of Apple planning to build a full-fledged TV hit a crescendo by the end of the year with sources pegging the release sometime toward the end of 2012.

We predicted the first self-published e-book only millionaire author will arrive… Twenty-six year old self-published paranormal romance author Amanda Hocking sold over 450,000 copies of her e-books in January 2011 alone. She is now a millionaire and is ushering in a new era of hope for self-published authors everywhere.

And we said that by end of 2011, Facebook will announce its billionth active member. Yes, billion with a B.

As of latest confirmed count in September 2011, Facebook had 800 million active members. Since there is no way to tell exactly how many active members Facebook had as of December 31, 2011 short of them announcing it, we’re reluctant to say we were, in fact, wrong on this one, but we’ll humbly concede that we may have missed the mark on it. However, with a blockbuster IPO lined up for 2012 and it’s global recognition at an all-time high, it’s simply inevitable that Facebook will cross that billion member mark. It’s just a matter of time.

Looks like we were 3 for 4. Not bad.
So what do we think 2012 has in store for the world of digital innovation?

Well this year we won’t go so far out on a limb and make our own predictions. Instead, we would like to highlight the following select few of our favorite predictions from other digital pundits from across the Web that we wholeheartedly agree with:

2012 Will Finally Be The Year Mobile Advertising Really Take Off, With At Least One AdNet Going Public

When it comes to true customer engagement, ‘phygital,” or the bridging of physical and digital, sums up where marketing is going and is set to become one of the big trends of 2012

Software as a service becomes the default choice for enterprises

Android malware creeps to prominence

Your smartphone is going to be your wallet

Ecommerce hits a tablet near you

Voice control will be big

Video will lead online ad growth

Facebook’s highly-anticipated IPO will send the tech stock buzz back into overdrive

It goes without saying 2012 is lining up to be another exciting year in digital innovation.  What are your predictions for the defining digital developments of 2012?

Contributed by Edwin Philogene at the Digital Lab New York