Some frustration, perhaps, has lead to the creation of the YABA-friendly WHATWG. The idea is, in essence, to create new technologies to extend the core Web standards (HTML, CSS, DOM and ECMA Script) and allow developers to created Web-based applications. (MozillaZine offers a good overview.)

While it’s hard to predict the direction of this medium, Web applications is definitely the next hot spot, and probably will be so during the next few years. Everyone seems to be reacting to the perceived threats Longhorn (a.k.a., Windows 2007) will introduce to the Web.