A friend of mine sends an IM:  "There's so much going on in the [Bay Area] that I hate to leave, even for a few days."  She burbles (electronically) about three separate really great digital/business/social events that all happened last night. 

Here's one take on this burst of energy and enthusiasm: 

[T]he high-tech industry appears to be entering a vibrant new phase of both growth and upheaval. It is the Web's sober second act, characterized not by soaring stock prices but by forces that are challenging traditional industries - from publishing to telecommunications - to adopt new business plans. Consumers seem to be the only sure winners. The maturing of the Internet as an engine of the global economy is being driven by a handful of important forces: 1) shrinking sizes and prices, 2) "digital convergence" -- the fusion of computing with other traditional industries foreseen in the 1990s -- is happening in earnest, challenging traditional communications industries, and 3) wireless services are making the Web portable, not just a desk-bound tool.

Everyone is getting skilled at thinking up the next metainformational thingie (blog of blog of blogs!), but we're still so clearly at the beginning.  Someone told me last night that speed of access to hard drives hasn't changed in years, even though both storage and bandwidth are soaring.  We're still having problems getting at the mountains of data we have, even as we're creating more.  I wish I could see around the corner and understand where we're going.

At the moment, though, the best I can do is go to the Bay Area myself for a few days.  I'm going to be hanging around talking about OneWebDay (link coming before Thursday).  I'll post my coffeehouse whereabouts here.