A decade ago when the Webby Awards began, they would have been lucky to coax a backstreet bar in Brooklyn into giving them a free space.

But 10 years on, everything has changed.

The event launched the 10th anniversary cavalcade, which will not be staged here until next June. So as not to peak too early, there was a philosophical theme on offer – what lies ahead for the web in the next decade?

The Webby’s bubbly founder, Tiffany Shlain, told the BBC News website that, like it or not, a second boom was now under way.

I don’t really like the talk of a second boom. I would rather them call it something else because in my mind this new revolution being called web 2.0 (ug, I hate that term too) is growing slowly, and very carefully. Venture capitalists are slowly starting to put their money back into web ventures, but it is mainly left to the big Google’s and AOL’s of the world to pick up pre-established websites and companies.

I can tell you one thing though, that if the last ten years of progress is any indication, the web of ten years from now will be a very different beast from what it is today.

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