What is real?

I’ve been busily building middleware to enable Web 2.0 application creation for about 2 years, but until recently haven’t fully realized the full impact of this social revolution. 

My enlightenment started a couple weekends ago when my sister-in-law, Amy, told me she’d been part of a conversation with her younger colleagues where they were discussing their relationships.  Amy was told in no uncertain terms that a relationship wasn’t real unless it was on facebook.   After hearing this I chuckled a bit but didn’t think much more of it.  Shortly after my chat with Amy I read this article on CNN which echoed Amy’s comments exactly, and got me thinking.  

What strikes me is that the Web has evolved from a place where information is shared to a place where information is born. As I ponder this I can’t help but wonder: What is real? 

Apparently this guy hasn’t heard the news

I read this fascinating post from Paul Murphy, but it makes me wonder…. Hasn’t Paul heard the news, Java has code completion.