Taking the adage “Think globally, blog locally” to heart, here are my predictions for what will happen this year in the Swedish blogosphere:

By the end of February, Sweden’s liberal bloggers collectively decide on a new tack for their online debates. No longer do they try to bolster their critique of the Swedish model with evidence of the country’s economic decline. The main problem with this tactic was that such evidence is mighty hard to come by — in fact, Sweden unhelpfully manages to stick tenaciously to the top of almost any league table you care to mention. Instead, liberal bloggers decide to argue that Sweden is doing so well despite the economic baggage of the Swedish model, and that market reforms would allow it to perform even more competitively, which is crucial for the future.

In March, Sweden’s left-of-center bloggers collectively decide that basic economic terminology is not in fact capitalist propaganda, and begin using words such as “comparative advantage,” “terms of trade,” “multiplier effect,” and “structural unemployment” in their blog posts when discussing economic policy. It becomes widely accepted that these notions apply to all economies, from Hong Kong to North Korea. The overall quality of economic and political debate rises drastically as a result.

In May, Bloggforum 2.0 disintegrates into a huge bullefight half-way through when someone is accused of being a proffsbloggare (pro blogger), and this person retorts by calling his accuser a noll-bloggare (nullbloggers, referring to the number of comments the typical post accrues). The conflict rapidly escalates — proffsbloggare and noll-bloggare battle lines are drawn, and both sides lobby the small but crucial popular-amateur blogger faction for support. The conflict simmers for the duration of the summer.

In August, eventhough it’s because it’s the middle of summer and newspaper editors are desperate for any kind of content, we get a first proper blog post to opinion-page article transplant.

In September, Stockholm gets its first commercial city blog, replete with targeted local ads. The people writing it had never even heard of blogs back in January. It gets written up in the press, and by the end of the year, it will be the first Swedish blog to consistently get over 5,000 visitors a day.

In October, Jinge is unmasked as a Timbro operative. It turns out he was paid to make the enemies of capitalism look paranoid.

In December, a Swedish blogger will use the word “blogg” in a conversation with civilians and they will know what she is talking about. She will blog the occasion.