I've always gotten the giggles when the putrescent pundits at old-school "think tanks" like Forrester start throwing BS around.  We used to get out our cards and play "Buzzword Bingo," because, well, nobody throws buzz-words like people who would like to be paid for their opinion on something that everybody knows about already.  If you want to make it sound like you know something that others don't, you usually start making up your own lingo and using it as if everybody knows what you're talking about.  Those that get confused by these made-up terms then spend enormous amounts of money for the publications of these pundits, only to discover that it's usually something that they already knew, and that the think-tank's grasp of the obvious is tenuous at best.  The sky isn't really falling, the Web isn't coming to an end, and yes, kids consume web content far more readily than their parents.  There's that "duh" moment when you realize that the man behind the curtain has just used 1500 words to tell you something that your average high school graduate can cover in ten.  This bliffy got one thing right, though: like most older people, he's completely out of touch with the youth market.  Perhaps he can hire some young people to tell him what's going on, and *they* can be paid for their opinion on something that everybody already knows.  Funny how what goes around comes around -- again.

The first time I encountered a prediction that the Web was dead was in 1997. The Web was barely even born then. I expect the Web will outlive this prediction, just as it has the others. 

It pays in these sorts of discussions to distinguish carefully between, on the one hand, the Web -- an application that, like Dropbox and Facebook -- runs on the Internet, and, on the other hand, the Internet itself. 

You say: "Take Dropbox and services of the like. I don't think about them being "on the Web." You're right not to think of them that way, because they don't run on the Web. They're Internet applications which can be accessed through the Web and other means. (And like you I rarely use the Web interface -- although when I share documents, I send a URL, which is a Web tool.)

The Web is too useful to die. 

Social media saturation -- I think it will become more common. Work-related social networking will continue to occupy its own niche, but I think people are starting to have their fill of some of the non-work-related social sites.

Agree that the death of the Web is premature. The death of the underlying access technology is more like it -- and that's not an issue everyone will be aware of, no?

Kicheko, the "elastic limit" of social media...Perfect. Why weren't you around when I was writing this post!?

As for Colony's contention about the Death of the Web, I think he's more saying that thanks to Internet-enabled apps, the relationship between local and "cloud" will be increasingly seamless and invisible. Take Dropbox and services of the like. I don't think about them being "on the Web." They synchronize my devices is all. (And, regarding this app, I very rarely visit the Web interface.) 

I agree with points 2, 3 and 4 and particularly that social media is really approaching its elastic limit.

Death of the web on the other hand ...we may be predicting it too soon (hoping i did not misunderstand the point). True that mobile will be bigger than web, but i doubt the basic way of working in the office for instance is about to change. We still work best from a big screen and access the web that way, and commonly using search tools.

My take is that mobile is only coming in to fill an unoccupied gap rather than to kick out web per se. In the sense that people will access internet more in times they would have otherwise not gone to the internet at all. However in times when they were bound to log into their laptops and desktops, they still will do.