What should Twitter do in 2010? Where will the stock prices Google, Amazon, and Microsoft end the year? Which companies will be acquired in the next year? And which cloud-computing platform will dominate?

Those were among the burning questions last night as TechFlash's John Cook moderated the WTIA 2010 Predictions event -- reprising a role that has become an annual tradition in the local tech community. On the panel were Kelly Smith, founding partner, Curious Office; Greg Gottesman, managing director, Madrona Venture Group; Glenn Kelman, CEO, Redfin; Bill Bryant, venture partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson; and Andy Sack entrepreneur and general partner in Founders Co-op.

Read on for notes from the panel, gleaned from John's recording.

Let's say you're the CEO of Twitter in 2010. How do you make money?

Kelman: Charge for search, building on new partnerships with search engines. In general, Twitter is overvalued. The company is going to continue to grow, but people are paying too much attention to Twitter, and not enough to Facebook. That is still the dominant social network.

Sack: Twitter will make a lot more money than Facebook in 2010.

Kelman: You think Twitter is going to go from zero to $300 million in one year?

Sack: Yeah, sure. They've sold the search feed to Microsoft and Google. Twitter is a promotional vehicle. Facebook is a social vehicle. Twitter has more potential to make revenue.

Bryant: Twitter is not mainstream, and the traffic numbers suggest it's not going to get there.

Gottesman: If I was the CEO of Twitter in 2010 I would sell. There are a lot of buyers out there, including Microsoft, who have the perception that they could do a lot more with Twitter than Twitter can do by itself.

Smith: I completely agree with Greg. You're a lunatic if you think Twitter is going to become a profitable company before its sold. Twitter is going to sell a bill of goods to a prospective buyer, convince this big company of its potential value. It's going to be absorbed by a big company and it's ultimately going to go nowhere. The signal-to-noise ratio on Twitter is completely unmanageable. If it's going to be useful, experience has to be totally different.

Google's stock price is currently around $577. Where will it end up in 2010?

Sack: $701

Smith: $720; based on the strength of a Google-branded phone.

Gottesman: About where it is now.

Kelman: $650; Huge shift to Google in the enterprise.

Bryant: $500; Google is still a one-trick pony. They have not historically demonstrated any other revenue stream.

Microsoft is currently around $30. Where will it end up in 2010? And will Steve Ballmer remain CEO?

Sack: Ballmer still CEO, $31.75

Kelman: $32, and if he hasn't left by now, why would he leave in 2010?

Gottesman: Ballmer will stay. Stock price will run up in 2010, with Windows 7, but will decline to current level by end of year.

Smith: Windows 7 a giant step forward. Will help them maintain market share. Azure cloud service gaining traction, and Bing has generated ability to take market share from Yahoo. About $40.

Bryant: Price will at least touch $40 with Windows 7 tailwinds.

Amazon currently around $130 a share. Has been on a great run. Where do they end up?

Sack: I'm a shareholder, and I think the stock is going to continue to go up. International expansion, core-ecommerce. $155-$160.

Kelman: Agreed. Amazon the most entrenched brand on the Internet.

Gottesman: I just feel like the stock market has run up like crazy, so I'm a little less bullish on the macro stock market. That's why I think Amazon will be around where it is today, like the other ones.

Smith: Probably $150.

Bryant: Amazon will buy Netflix and Hulu and close the year by buying Blockbuster, renaming them all as Amazon stores. Stock price: $152

Cook: In 2008, Bryant predicted Amazon would buy eBay. So take his predictions with a grain of salt.

Major mergers and acquisitions in 2010?

Gottesman: There will be some big deals, Cisco buying EMC for VMware. Locally F5 could get acquired by Cisco. Microsoft could buy RIM. If Microsoft wants to win in mobile, they have to do something like that.

Sack: Picnik will be purchased by Adobe, and ICanHasCheezburger will be bought by Rupert Murdoch. Redfin will get purchased, no idea by whom.

Bryant: By the National Realtors Association.

Smith: comScore will get acquired, following Adobe's acquisition of Omniture.

When will Chinese companies start buying U.S. tech companies?

Smith: Won't be a factor in 2010 to any meaningful degree.

Gottesman: Don't know if it will be 2010, but they'll be a force to be reckoned with.

Bryant: Domestic markets are so robust in China that they don't have to look to U.S. for growth.

What is going to be the dominant cloud architecture in 2010, 2011?

Gottesman: Next year? Amazon.

Kelman: Google is going to deploy more resources than Amazon. Within their core competency. I don't see how anyone can compete.

Smith: Amazon currently is richest in terms of features, flexibility. Microsoft Azure will appeal to people with Windows-centric initiatives or comfortable with Windows development. Google's primary sell point will be price. Who really knows, but the decision won't be made just on price.

If you had $2 million to invest at the beginning of 2010, what new startup tech company would you create, and what would you call it?

Smith: I would start a fun, online site, a music-creation service in the cloud. Pro tools in the cloud for consumers. Someone can record a song, fix their voice, fades, blends, collaborate with other people on songs through the cloud. User generated marketplace of drum beats, guitar riffs, etc. Would call it Plaudio, a spin on "planet" and "audio." The Picnik of music creation on the web.

Sack: I would take $2 million and put it into Founders Co-op, and invest it in three or four companies that way. I wouldn't invest it in one company. $2 million is too much to start one company with. Spaces I like right now are PR 2.0. Social media has totally undermined that business. Love lead-generation companies. Also health care. Video is huge.

Gottesman: Location-based entertainment will be big in the next couple years. Experiences you can have in the physical world, but with your mobile phone.

Kelman: I'd start a newspaper. I just think more people are reading content than ever before. The businesses of almost every major newspaper in the United States are completely sclerotic. Will the Seattle Times be here in two years? Will the Chicago Tribune be here in two years? I think there's an opportunity to crowdsource some of the content, to also have professional writers. Every community is going to need its own authoritative voice, and people will pay for that authoritative voice, if not through content then through associated events. I just look for fat turkeys that need to be reinvented.

Bryant: First of all, I've never been on a panel where another panelists used the word sclerotic. Think of things like augmented reality, combined with location-based services.

Also see coverage by Greg Huang of Xconomy and Brier Dudley of the Seattle Times.