It is almost impossible to predict with absolute precision, what the next big thing in our “web-i-sphere” will look like, 12 months from now. That notwithstanding, I am betting all my bills on a site which does a really good job of aggregating the “Social Graph” along with all our key day-to-day web services.

With the advent of OpenSocial, the Facebook API, XML, Web Services, Widgets, Gadgets, etc. the time is ripe to start tidying up the web. The next big thing looks something like Google’s iGoogle product, except it is much nicer, faster and has more RIA features. There are several cool Web 2.0 sites popping out of the woodwork every minute you catch your breath. Web users love diversity and competition but what do users really need? A Personalized Aggregator or PORTAL!

In fact, I can be somewhat biased and say it will have the very features that MyWorldBox.com promises to deliver!! In case you don’t know, that is my pet project.

Nonetheless, the big boys have their eyes on something of this sort. I won’t be surprised to see Google, News Corp, or any of the big players buy out the winner in this race by next October. Who would have thought that Google will buy out YouTube, when it had a very competitive product in the same market? Well, there is hope!

I remember a year ago, when I built a SharePoint site for my previous employer TimeWarner Cable: Media Sales, my goal was to build a personalized Portal with a Single-Sign On (SSO) capability — which ties right into a user’s network authentication/LDAP solution (in this case, Windows Active Directory). Eventually, the final product I delivered incorporated several custom-built Web Parts (or Widgets) which grabbed information via Web Services, APIs, XML feeds and the likes, from legacy systems and sometimes from external data scraping services.

For all intents and purposes, my users could launch all their CITRIX applications, check what was making news in their industry (aggregated from several key web sources), search and watch TV spots in production, et cetera — all from within their personalized SharePoint site [which was forced to their web browser(s) as the default homepage, at logon]. My users were so amazed at this level of personalization and aggregation that I couldn’t help but think of the endless possibilities out there.

What if, I (as a non-web-savvy user) can easily create a personalized homepage which allows me to view and communicate with all my friends on Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, LinkedIn, etc.; read and respond to all my email from Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, work email, etc; and perhaps schedule payments and track all my online bills and internet banking activities; search for my favorite food recipe with Google, MSN, Yahoo; scan through what is making World News, or maybe just Technology news, et cetera; all from this Portal? Well that is where I see the light shining brighter by the day! That’s where it’s at!

Which players have their eyes on the price?
To mention, but a few, SixApart (with OpenID), Google (with iGoogle and Orkut), and many more.