I believe that directories will be around for some time, but all these quick start ups will crash and burn because they do not understand the industry and do not have the budgets to keep going. The good ones will grow even more and become more authoritative in the industry then making it harder for these quick buck crew directories to come in and compete!
In that regard maybe the industry should fund a research project or two comparing paid vs free like John Scott did. That really opened my eyes. I never submit to free dir's anymore for any site.
he submitted to 400 or so free directories for one website, then submitted to several paid dirs. for another website. the paid submission brought that site a higher PR than the other......
but thats not to say that free directories are harmful or useless, just don't carry as much weight in terms of SEO and PR
The vision that i have for dump is beyond any real explanation i could type out. It will take a long long time to be able to handle all aspects of my day on top of being able to code what i want for it. But I am patient and it will happen. I actually have a smirk on my face now that I am thinking about it.
Directories will evolve over time but essentially will still be directories. When tags first came out I set up my first directory(2 years ago) to give my directory a new twist, now there are many tag directories (just remember that I invented the tag directory). I think directories with a theme or new edge will continue to surprise us much like the Bid craze at the moment. As long as the directory listing are human moderated I see a place for directories on the net.
Nope. That actually belongs to CReed (ewebpages.org). We sponsored a few sitesift templates, and I wanted to help him get the word out. My time constraints really do not allow me to blog about anything, even though I had set one up here: http://www.phpld.org/ Ahh well...