What kinds of web-based services will be popular in five years that don't exist today (or at least aren't popular yet)?

Services which allow you to remotely access your home or office desktop from a mobile or laptop, from anywhere in the world.

Privacy shields. For many, some of the relationships they had in the real world will have gone sour. With all the FB, MS, T, etc connections the service will help people extricate and shield themselves from the former lover, friend, or acquaintance.

@downtide dont they already have that? Logmein.com works like that.

I’d guess more web apps designed to make social networking easier on the go, and ways to manage all of them from one application, similar to digsby.

I would love to see a virtual pie throwing service where you could send a wet gooey pie of affection to anyone who is rubbing you the wrong way. I would call it Pie Space where you could post videos of the glorious moment for hours of viewing pleasure.

I think with the prevalence of SmartPhones, laptop computers, high speed wireless data, and mobility, that cloud computing (I really hate that term) is going to become more and more prevalent. People are giong to start keeping more of their data floating around.

Most of my school stuff is in my Dropbox, so I can access it anywhere I have an internet connection. Putting stuff on a thumb drive, as convenient as it is compared to what we were doing 5 years ago, just seems tedious when I could just have an online service that syncs everything and is accessible through a web interface.

Right now you can sync just about everything if you’re using MobileMe or some of the other competing cloud synchronization services, but I think features like that are going to become more prevalent. I’m looking forward to some kind of standard way of sharing, say, my to-do list database, contact list, and e-mail accounts across computers on the different clients when I so choose to log in. Perhaps something integrated into the operating system? It’s really hard to guess how these things are going to take off, but I’m not yet convinced that the cloud is a fad that is going to go away any time soon. It’s no revolution, but as people need to have their data in more places, I don’t think it’s dying out in popularity.

@downtide As @RandomMrDan says Logmein.com works for that. Also, GoToMyPc.com is another remote access program..

A way to view manage and erase your Internet presence so that all your former “crimes and misdemeanors” are not available for all to see.

A really good video chat program with reliable video transmission.

Image search – that is, searching for a product/service/definition/whatever by uploading a picture of it.

There will definitely be some great augmented reality applications. For instance, you could point your cell phone at any monument and automatically get it’s history displayed or at a store and get it’s information, sale items, map, etc…

A dating service that works.

A web application that will know what you’re going to search for next.

A service that keeps kids from sending money to disaster areas out of their parents’ accounts.

Standard answer If I knew I’d be rich.

@susanc that service you talk of is available by telling your service provider that such messages (sending money or buying music/downloads/etc) are not authorized for particular cell number(s)/username in your account.

Up to the minute Traffic status with live video feeds . . . although it’s now available for certain cities on certain sites (http://www.trafficland.com), . . . . but the keyword of the question is “popular”

@erichw1504 Well, it will suggest what you might want to search for next based on your recent or entire search history.

Remote desktop started with realVNC the first open source project, AT&T labs was involved. Now there’s myriads of clients. I use crossloop and teamviewer for remote help, ultravnc for my own use.

This is a cool thread though, I’ll keep checking it for ideas :)

@EgaoNoGenki Yea, that’s kind of what I meant.

@njnyjobs: tell @EgaoNoGenki that -

Home schooling from junior kindergarten to Ph.d. and most trades.