David Sifry is best-known as founder of Technorati, one of the flagship social software services. However, David has been in high tech for a couple decades, as CTO of a couple other companies. This is his answer to the big question:

I take a contrarian view to your question: I like and still use the word Cyberspace, and I think that there's no need for a new word.

The reason for this is the shared definition and vision that the word represents. First off, cyberspace gets the metaphor right – we're describing a new dimension, a spatial dimension. Rather than being the immersive VR-based world that Gibson originally envisioned, cyberspace is now a semi-transparent stream that is layered over our meatspace lives. It is an enhancement to our physical existence, an augmentation, not a retreat from it.

Cyberspace is not modal. It is ever-present, and we intersect and interact through the increasing number of tools and devices (dare I say implants at some point in the future) that is enhancing and enabling a new form of consciousness. I'm not talking about EST or transcendental meditation here, I'm talking about a sharpened awareness of our surroundings and the global events and people that shape our lives, all around us, that we ourselves participate in, both explicitly, and implicitly. As we live our daily lives, cyberspace itself is changed, even if we ourselves aren't aware of the changes, like small shifts in the earth's magnetic field when we simply move from one place to another.

Earlier suggestions:

Andy Clark: Interactatron

John Seely Brown: The Infomated World

Ross Mayfield: On and Catalink

…plus many others in the Wired article

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