Everywhere I look, it seems people are making New Year’s resolutions. It’s a time of new beginnings, and, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, everyone wants to try their luck at 2010 predictions. All too often, we see the beginning of January as a clean slate when anything is possible. I completely encourage this behavior, as I, too, think of the possibilities that a new year holds for us. But, at some point, you need to look back and make sure that you’re still on the right path. I know we’d all like to forget the economic woes of 2009, but we have to remember that our past experiences will shape how we do things in the future.

A recent MediaPost article pointed out some sparkly new things that may happen in 2010, namely the emergence of SSO (social search optimization). This is basically the optimization of real-time search (i.e. optimizing results from Twitter that appear on Google), and I’m sure everyone will be salivating over this delectable morsel soon enough. So let’s call out the not-so-new-but-still-impressive items coming to fruition in 2010.

What might they be? Pay per call. I know, I know, try your best not to nod off at the sight of those words strung together. Unfortunately, pay per call doesn’t have the shiny exterior that SSO has, but, believe it or not, it’s going to be big in 2010. In the same article where SSO is explored, pay per call is also highlighted by experts who have taken to heart the comScore/TMP Directional Marketing Local Search Usage Study.

Unlike SSO, pay per call has been a long time coming and actually does exist in a quite a few channels as I write this. But as businesses tire of the click metric, they’re going to be looking to monetize their ads through the next closest thing to a sale: the phone call. And as consumers become more mobile savvy in 2010, pay per call will be what advertisers turn to to meet their ROI.

So here’s to sparkly new things (SSO) in 2010, as well as the ability to take another look at a good thing already in the works (pay per call).