If 2007 was the year of the widget, and 2008 was the year Social Networks starting competing for critical mass with those old-fashioned portals, my feeling is that while these technologies will continue to gain momentum, 2009 will be the year that we will start to see the power of small, closed social networks emerge.

In places like IM, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and Ning, you can have a conversation with one person privately, up to three people comfortably, or everyone in your network publicly. You can elicit a response from within a large, fairly public group, which ends up trickling down into a series of one-to-one parallel private conversations to gain consensus around a topic.

There’s no mainstream-accessible social network space where you can have the best of both worlds: the ambient awareness of social networks along with the benefits of getting smaller peer group opinions around topics that require more than two other parties to have convenient access to.

It’s nothing special: cobbling today’s existing technology, it would be something of a mash-up between a tumblr blog with email alerting for the group. Quick and easy to set up, accessible from multiple devices, and reinforcing the small-network bonds we create today with the phone and email.

A few examples:

• All the families getting their schedules together for trips to visit the grandparents.
• Sharing photos with the guys after the trip to Vegas.
• Picking out an engagement ring for guys, or narrowing down wedding dresses for gals.
• Deciding on where to eat lunch or dinner with coworkers.

What do you think? Hit me with comments or suggestions below, or on twitter @mleis.

Related posts:

1. 3 Ways the Ground is Shifting in Social Networks
2. FTW 2009: APIs
3. FTW 2009: Digital Television
4. Boosting Loyalty By Integrating Social and CRM