For those interested in a view to the future, I just reviewed a presentation made by Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker at the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.  Her presentation covered two topics--the economy and internet trends.  On the former, her comments seem to reflect the mainstream view that the economy is recovering but that there are still some problem areas.  Among those, she highlights unemployment, government and personal debt levels, and weak consumer confidence.

The more interesting part (to me) begins with slide #28 where she focuses on the explosive growth of the mobile internet.  In a nutshell she thinks that access to the internet via smart phones and other mobile devices will be bigger than most of us think, and will have a profound impact on technology development in the future.  A big part of this will be the marriage of social networking and mobile computing, leading to new ways to connect with one another and gather information.  As in all such great technology shifts, there will be winners and there will be losers. 

The powerpoint slides from her talk can be found here:  http://tinyurl.com/yg3n9bp