Instead of spending countless hours obsessing over what defines “Web 2.0/3.0”, or any other “dot-o” people may see coming, lets focus on a tangible, visible trend: web applications. Web apps have evolved from relatively useless novelties to full-scale software solutions that have the potential to entirely replace some software, while simultaneously offering a complete and more useful feature set. Often in the form of “mashups” that filter and selectively display content from the vast amount of data available on the web, or so-called “cloud computing”, these applications utilize the processing power of thousands of servers, rather than your measly desktop machine.

Adobe Photoshop, the professional standard in the image-editing world, is a great example. Now offered in an online version built with Adobe’s desktop-like Flex interface, Photoshop.com provides a variety of photo editing tools, online storage and even social sharing for your photos – all within a web browser. Will Photoshop.com replace the desktop version of the software? Probably not, but it will allow your Great Aunt Gertrude to rotate and share that picture of her new dog Fluffy, without requiring her to spend thousands on hardware and software.