Online research firm GigaOM Pro announced it is now offering a paid-research service designed to help subscribers understand where this Internet thing is headed.

Giga Omni Media founder Om Malik explains on the pages of Salon:

Slowly but surely, the web is being disaggregated, dismembered and at the same time, becoming more interactive. Some call it the Now Web, others are labeling it the Real-Time Web, while still others view it as the Social Web. They all describe components of what we refer to as the NewNet. ...

Why the name NewNet? To reflect the fact that the web of tomorrow will be very different from the web of today. The change is being brought about by two major trends: The first is the availability of increasingly more bandwidth, both wireless and wireline. The second is the number of devices we can now use to create and consume content.

What Malik's second point really is about is the rise of social networking -- "non-professionals" creating, sharing and discussing the content they produce -- and the advent of instant ("real-time") information distribution.

Malik also offers this:

More and more people are publishing more and more "social objects" and sharing them online. That data deluge is creating a new kind of search opportunity.

This is an important insight because navigating the web today really is like driving in a large parking lot: There's little order and things are coming at you from all directions. That's the challenge semantic web technology and other "smarter search" efforts are attempting to address.

Among the types of research reports you can read as a subscriber to NewNet:

"Understanding Google Wave: An Experiment in Real-Time Web Use"

"Why Facebook & Twitter Should Work Together"

"It's Time To Get Real Time, Corporate America"