With everyone (including myself) talking about the top apps of 2008, I thought I would instead focus on the apps and the startups that have died, lost ground, or simply drifted off into the darkness of the intertubes.

We have just released a new report on the future of the internet. It is the third in a series of reports we have built around surveys of experts about the world to come. In this newest report 578 experts and analysts have this to say in reaction to scenarios we asked them to evaluate:

The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.

The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.

Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.

Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing “arms race,” with the “crackers” who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.

The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.

“Next-generation” engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.

I see some interesting implications emerging out of this research in terms of prosumerism and user-generated content. One of the biggest early questions is that while “broadcast yourself” is the corporate trademark, is it really that important to YouTube’s iconic success? I can definitely say that a “sample of one” outside of the research (i.e. my own viewing habits) found that most of the videos being watched were not user-generated…

Da oggi c’è in giro un libro (elettronico, per il momento :) che si chiama [mini]marketing, 91 discutibili tesi per un marketing diverso, in download gratuito, pubblicato con tanto di ISBN a cura di Simplicissimus Book Farm, e che tra l’altro proprio in questo momento è nel ruolo di guest book all’inaugurazione virtuale del nuovo sito di Apogeo

If there were an OpenID for Dummies book, its publisher would be Facebook Connect, because for all intents and purposes, it’s the same thing, at least to 99.9% of end users who experience it. For an example of how it works, the new Citysearch beta, which launched a couple weeks ago, allows users to use their Facebook login to write reviews and leave comments. Those actions are then broadcast back to the Facebook News Feed.

We are always in the search of great free resources, tips and tricks, etc for our readers. Every day, we works hard to find new resources and features them here for you. Today, we have another great post Discover The Best Of The Web on SmashingApps. In this, we will find and make a list of 31 Incredible Resources And Inspirations For Designers Like You To Discover The Best Of The Web In November. Maybe, we could not cover all of the best from around the web but we will try our best to cover as much as possible.