My friend Dave Lane linked me to a very interesting article titled, Taking Back the Web, on News.Com describing how the new technologies are moving the Internet back to its social roots.

I couldn't agree more.  From a solution developer standpoint, I think the next couple of years will be both exciting and facinating.  We're finally getting tools into the general marketplace that allow mere mortals to do cool and amazing stuff.  What used to take an army of web developer types ( or at least someone who knew HTML and FTP ) can now be done by anyone who can type and, hopefully, string together words into more or less coherent sentences.

If you need more proof, check out Michael Arrington's latest entry on TechCrunch, Web 2.0 Companies I Couldn’t Live Without, which lists the products that Michael says's he "would not choose to live without on the web."

Power to the people!