Paul Buchheit, the man who built the first versions of both Gmail and Adsense, says the real time web is going to be the next big thing.

But what's the point? What's in it for us, as users? We offer below three models of value that we suspect will be found in the Real Time Web. They are the concepts that underly the vision described above at the top of this post. Those concepts are Ambiance, Automation and Emergence. This is just an initial exploration of ideas, reality will undoubtedly be more complicated shortly. We welcome your participation in thinking about this part of the fast-approaching future of the web.

By the way, "Web 2.0" simply means advanced, or "second-generation," Internet. The main thrust is a shift away from static Web sites, where nothing moves, to interactive, dynamic and shareable content. Originally, Web sites were inert: You could access a site and read it, and that was that. With technological advances came sites you could affect, the most popular of which are blogs and social networks - which allow you to build your own Web site, showing whatever content you choose.