Tech Trends to Watch in 2008

4) Extracting more value from interactions. As a result of all this outsourcing, the nature of work is changing. A growing proportion of the labor force in developed economies engages primarily in work that involves negotiations and conversations. Knowledge, judgment and ad hoc collaboration -- all tacit interactions. By 2015, McKinsey expects employment in jobs primarily involving such interactions to account for about 44% of total U.S. employment, up from 40% today. Europe and Japan will experience similar changes in the composition of their workforces.

The difficulty of monetizing interactions, such as in the health care arena, can be illustrated by looking at HLTH Corporation (HLTH Quote). This company provides health information services and at one time spun out 20% of WebMD Health Corp. (WBMD Quote), a fast growing portal business. It now aims to rejoin it through a merger.

After reporting a weaker-than-expected third quarter, the consensus estimate for HLTH 2008 earnings per share were again revised downward. The consensus now expects 78 cents for 2008, an increase of only 5% over the 2007 estimates. Given its weak growth outlook, this stock does not look like a candidate for an analyst recommendation anytime soon.

So here we have two stocks to buy now (RIMM and MSFT), one that might be interesting if you are patient (MNST) and one that only a patient would love (HLTH).

Read more tech trends for 2008 in part two.