The World’s Next Big Thing: According to LeWeb.

The best new apps for your smartphone, “the cloud,” your desktop and more. Many were on display at this week’s LeWeb ’09 in Paris, drawing over 2000 participants from 46 countries in Paris for Europe’s #1 Internet event.

North America will dive into its own big technology expos starting next month, but LeWeb gave us a preview of what’s coming – and even what’s already here. This year’s program (December 9 and 10) also focused on really, really big questions, like:

• “Who will win the Twitter vs. Facebook battle?”
• “Where are the opportunities for entrepreneurs in the real-time ecosystem?”
• “How brands and marketing have to adapt to this new worldwide real time ‘word of mouth’.”
• “What is the new public customer service?”

CNN.com also provided a nice recap of some of the best new gadgets and applications promising to “change the way we interface with the Internet.” My favorites include:

• ClubCooee (a desktop 3D web messenger)
• TicTacDo (a “social productivity tool” offering more than 10,000 how-to checklists)
• Yatedo (an “image monitoring service” drawing data from across the WWW)
• PearlTrees (a new way of interfacing with the Internet and organizing your online life)

For more on these and other coming applications, “Are any of these the Web’s next big thing?” and go to LeWeb ‘09.