So, like, with so much information on, like, the interwebs, earth will turn into a black hole in 2012?

Point taken for the sigmoidal curve. Though I still believe the next 10 will be marked by some drastic changes both in the technologies used and the way to use them. Think about it, IT is a researching field, where tools are made to improve the making of future tools. The parallel with the phone development is clever, but it doesn't take in account that conputers are made to make computers (when users are done watching the kittens). There will always be bottlenecks at the end of a technology's life, but there will always be discoveries to do things better, or differently, I'm thinking quantum computing. Then again, the social factor is enormous. I see things like broadband for mostly everyone and everywhere, with mostly everyone participating and using it, happening really soon. Anyway it's gonna be interesting.

You forgot two things. First, technology tends to grow exponentially. It reaches a limit at one moment, but overall, the faster it goes, the faster it gets. Second, the impact of the social media is extremely huge, I live in Asia, and in my city nearly everybody who can access a computer owns a facebook account, that's a LOT of people. Online presence will not be more different for the generations born in the last 10 than phone calls are for us, that's a major change.

What many seem to forget is that lately, many late users (I mean users attracted to a higher use of Teh Interwebz by social media and such) are currently worrying about their privacy. The IRC/Usenet generation might still see privacy as "doing whatever I want under cover of anonymity", but the later users see it as "I don't want my boss to see my Nekd Disco Foam Night photos where I'm pole dancing with three transvestites and a horse photos I just uploaded". From there onward it's just a matter of time until someone has the idea to make our online publication a 'real' private belonging. How can it be done without linking it to our IRL identity ?

Think about it : I blurb on your blog about a wiki mashup No scam or spam, O google No phising nor pharming O youtube Only Boingo, and Linkedin and Jaiku For I am a good netizen All the web is already in Vogon's poetry.