&gt; In the early 90s, the next big thing was WebTV, VR, or PDAs. Instead, we got the WWW.<p>That&#x27;s kind of confused: WebTV was a predicted next big thing <i>after</i> the WWW (it was, in fact, seen as a progression of the WWW).<p>Of course, mobile (PDAs, basically) was big in the next wave you cite, and VR is, if not quite big, just hitting the consumer market in a noticeable way now. And WebTV is basically the original SmartTV STBs, which are now an integrated part of most consumer TVs. So, another one that went big, if somewhat later.<p>&gt; In 2008, the next big thing was casual games, (micro)blogs, and embeddable widgets. Instead we got mobile and the sharing economy.<p>Microblogging was predicted earlier, and became big (as a key part of 2nd wave social networking -- FB&#x2F;Twitter, which displaced MySpace, etc.). In fact, its so central to them that its just been absorbed into the concept of what social networking <i>is</i> rather than being called out as a separate, distinct thing anymore.<p>Ditto with casual games, which then moved from social networking platforms largely to mobile, and while some of the original <i>developers</i> went through a bust after their initial boom, that seems to because the market got more competition, not because it stopped being big. So, of these, the only one that wasn&#x27;t true either before or shortly after 2008 is &quot;embeddable widgets&quot;.<p>&gt; Now, the next big thing is wearables, IoT, or AI. And who knows what we&#x27;re going to get?<p>Well, judging from the success of the other things you point to, probably all three of those (or at worst 2 of 3), but only one of them will hit it big in <i>this</i> wave, and the others will be one-two waves later.