I’ll have to change the title of the predictions blog next year to something else, because the hype cycle around all the terms prefixed with the word “social” has run its course. Terms like “social networking,” “social media,” “social gaming,” “social buying,” and so on are now officially redundant and will be replaced by other terms in 2012. Organizations will stop thinking about “social” as a special aspect of their business strategy and realize that, just like the internet and telephony, the collaborative elements collectively referred to as “social” are just another aspect of doing business in a connected world.