At All Things Digital World Headquarters*, our huge staff of expert analysts** is always keeping track of two things: The latest trends in tech and media, and the latest jargon used to hype those trends.

This year, as we convene the seventh edition of D: All Things Digital, we think something major is happening at the intersection of tech and media, and we think it deserves its own new hyped-up name: Web 3.0. Yes, folks, we are declaring the Web 2.0 era over, because, well, when you run conferences and Web sites, you can say stuff like that.

But, if you read on a bit, you will see that we actually have some real, rational basis for believing that yet another seminal moment has arrived in the never-ending digital revolution that inspired us to launch this gathering. And, as you will observe over the next few days, we have assembled what we think is a stellar lineup of speakers to address this major change and other topics.

First, though, a few words about the elephant in the ballroom: The Great Recession. Or, as we like to call it on the AllThingsD.com Web site: The Econalypse. We started work on launching D during the last tech bust, and we believed then that — despite the very real economic woes afflicting the industry–the digital tidal wave sweeping the world wasn’t stopping. In fact, it was during that last recession that the iPod, iTunes, Windows XP, Mac OS X and early social networking services, like Friendster and LinkedIn, were born.

We are painfully aware that this crisis is far worse–we work at a media company, after all, and media companies have been economic piñatas lately. We do not in any way underestimate the economic pain and danger still under way all over the world. But we still believe the digital tidal wave rolls on. And we are immensely grateful to all of you for continuing to attend D under these tough circumstances. In fact, your support has been so strong that we actually sold out a few days earlier this year than last.

So what’s the seminal development that’s ushering in the era of Web 3.0? It’s the real arrival, after years of false predictions, of the thin client, running clean, simple software, against cloud-based data and services. The poster children for this new era have been the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, which have sold 37 million units in less than two years and attracted 35,000 apps and one billion app downloads in just nine months.

The excitement and energy around the iPhone and the Touch–and the software and services being written for them–remind us of the formative years of the PC and PC software, in the early 1980s, or the early days of the Web in the mid-1990s.

It’s a big deal.

But this is not just about one company, one platform or even one form factor. No, this new phenomenon is about handheld computers from many companies, with software platforms and distribution mechanisms tightly tied to cloud-based services, whether they are multi-player games, e-commerce offerings or corporate databases.

Already Palm, Research in Motion, Nokia, Microsoft and others are hot on Apple’s tail. You will hear from them here at D. And a profusion of new devices, software development kits, app stores and cloud-based services has been announced in the teeth of the economic downturn.

Some of these handheld computers will make phone calls, but others won’t. Some will fit in a pocket, but others will be tablets or even laptop-type clamshells. But, like the iPhone, all will be fusions of clever new hardware, innovative client software and powerful server-based components.

And media companies are on the case, too. You can already read The Wall Street Journal and other news sources, complete with photos and videos, on the iPhone, the BlackBerry and the Kindle, and new handheld devices are coming that are tailored to news. Our own AllThingsD iPhone app will be out by the time you read this. And consumers can stream radio and TV, and even follow live sports events, on pocket devices.

Over the next few days, you’ll hear from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, whose company makes software for both the new platforms and the traditional PCs they threaten. And the leaders of the hottest social network, Twitter, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, will talk about its future. Speaking of the future of social networking, we have invited News Corp. digital head Jon Miller and MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, who were recently brought in to reinvigorate the media giant’s business, to talk about how they plan to do just that.

You’ll hear from new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, who’s trying to deal with rivals and suitors just as the new era is dawning. Also on stage will be the leaders of some key companies making the handheld computers’ hardware and software: Mike Lazaridis of RIM; Jon Rubinstein and Roger McNamee of Palm; and Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo of the worldwide mobile phone leader, Nokia.

From the telecom side, there’ll be Randall Stephenson of AT&T. Cable pioneer and media mogul John Malone will offer his perspective on the future of television.

And, from the content world, we’ll have Jeff Zucker of NBC, Irving Azoff of Ticketmaster, Mark Cuban of HDNet, blogging queen Arianna Huffington and Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth.

The leaders of Mozilla, Mitchell Baker and John Lilly, will talk about the role of Web browsers and open source. And playwright Eve Ensler will explain how all this shiny technology is tied, unwittingly, to a crisis thousands of miles away.

So sit back, open your minds, and get ready for Web 3.0.

*Actually, just a cottage in back of Kara’s house.

**Actually, just a handful of journalists, a couple of editors, a geek and an intern, plus some business people.

Incredibly, this is the seventh year of the D: All Things Digital conference.

We feel very lucky to get here, especially in the midst of what our own site’s Digital Daily scribe, John Paczkowski, has so perfectly dubbed the “econalypse.”

Ironically, Walt Mossberg and I planned to launch the very first conference in the middle of the last major downturn for tech, in 2001. But, in the carnage of the Web 1.0 meltdown, we actually held off for two years, with our first D gathering taking place in 2003.

It’s been a real winning streak since then for D, due in large part to our great speakers–such as Microsoft (MSFT) icon Bill Gates and Apple (AAPL) legend Steve Jobs.

Both have been onstage many times over the years, including a historic interview the pair of tech titans did together in 2007 at D5.

Other amazing speakers have included: Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE), Barry Diller of InterActiveCorp (IACI), legendary director George Lucas, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (AMZN), former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch, Microsoft head Steve Ballmer, Walt Disney (DIS) honcho Bob Iger, Bobby Kotick of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), CBS (CBS) CEO Les Moonves, Democratic and Republican pols like former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John McCain, all the leadership of Google (GOOG) and many, many more.

We have had a lot of great moments onstage with all these tech and media players over the years, to be sure, with interviews ranging from the funny to the sublime to the truly disastrous.

But, like the digital industry and the innovation our conference focuses on, we also like to lean forward to try to figure out what the Next Big Thing is around the corner, whether it comes from Silicon Valley or not.

That’s why we’re kicking off our conference on May 26 with two of the founders of Twitter–Biz Stone and Evan Williams–who are riding high on tech’s latest hot thing, which might turn out to be either a rocket ship or a shooting star.

They’ll be followed up over the next two days by a plethora of interesting players, from the leaders of several major mobile companies to content execs hit hard by fast-moving digital forces to a new Internet leader like Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz, who is trying to turn around one of the Web’s great icons from its more recent lackluster path.

And, as we always do, we will be featuring a spate of demos too, trying to see if we can unearth that next next thing.

In the past, the D stage has seen the debut of start-up products like Sling Media’s Slingbox, Aliph’s Jawbone and Pure Digital’s Flip, all of which have gone onto glory. And also some, like Palm’s Foleo, which did not.

While not everyone can attend D, our crack staff is committed to bringing all the action from this year’s conference to readers of the All Things Digital site via up-to-the-minute blogs, photos, videos, tweets, digs and more. We’ll also, as soon as we can, post the videos of each of the onstage sessions, in their entirety.

Until it all kicks off, here is the list of speakers, below, in alphabetical order, who will be appearing at 2009′s D7 conference:

Irving Azoff | CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM)

Mitchell Baker | Chairman of Mozilla

Steve Ballmer | CEO of Microsoft

Carol Bartz | CEO of Yahoo

Mark Cuban | Chairman of HDNet and Owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theaters and Magnolia Pictures

Eve Ensler | Playwright and Founder of V-Day

Arianna Huffington | Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo | CEO of Nokia (NOK)

Mike Lazaridis | Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIMM)

John Lilly | CEO of Mozilla

John Malone | Chairman of Liberty Media Corporation (LCAPA)

Roger McNamee | Partner, Elevation Partners

Jon Miller | Chief Digital Officer of News Corp.

Jon Rubinstein | Executive Chairman, Palm (PALM)

Randall Stephenson | CEO of AT&T (T)

Biz Stone | Co-founder of Twitter

Owen Van Natta | CEO of MySpace

Katharine Weymouth | Publisher of the Washington Post (WPO)

Evan Williams | Co-founder and CEO of Twitter

Jeff Zucker | CEO of NBC Universal (GE)

Incredibly, this is the seventh year of the D: All Things Digital conference.

We feel very lucky to get here, especially in the midst of what our own site’s Digital Daily scribe, John Paczkowski, has so perfectly dubbed the “econalypse.”

Ironically, Walt Mossberg and I planned to launch the very first conference in the middle of the last major downturn for tech, in 2001. But, in the carnage of the Web 1.0 meltdown, we actually held off for two years, with our first D gathering taking place in 2003.

It’s been a real winning streak since then for D, due in large part to our great speakers–such as Microsoft (MSFT) icon Bill Gates and Apple (AAPL) legend Steve Jobs.

Both have been onstage many times over the years, including a historic interview the pair of tech titans did together in 2007 at D5.

Other amazing speakers have included: Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE), Barry Diller of InterActiveCorp (IACI), legendary director George Lucas, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (AMZN), former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch, Microsoft head Steve Ballmer, Walt Disney (DIS) honcho Bob Iger, Bobby Kotick of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), CBS (CBS) CEO Les Moonves, Democratic and Republican pols like former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John McCain, all the leadership of Google (GOOG) and many, many more.

We have had a lot of great moments onstage with all these tech and media players over the years, to be sure, with interviews ranging from the funny to the sublime to the truly disastrous.

But, like the digital industry and the innovation our conference focuses on, we also like to lean forward to try to figure out what the Next Big Thing is around the corner, whether it comes from Silicon Valley or not.

That’s why we’re kicking off our conference on May 26 with two of the founders of Twitter–Biz Stone and Evan Williams–who are riding high on tech’s latest hot thing, which might turn out to be either a rocket ship or a shooting star.

They’ll be followed up over the next two days by a plethora of interesting players, from the leaders of several major mobile companies to content execs hit hard by fast-moving digital forces to a new Internet leader like Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz, who is trying to turn around one of the Web’s great icons from its more recent lackluster path.

And, as we always do, we will be featuring a spate of demos too, trying to see if we can unearth that next next thing.

In the past, the D stage has seen the debut of start-up products like Sling Media’s Slingbox, Aliph’s Jawbone and Pure Digital’s Flip, all of which have gone onto glory. And also some, like Palm’s Foleo, which did not.

While not everyone can attend D, our crack staff is committed to bringing all the action from this year’s conference to readers of the All Things Digital site via up-to-the-minute blogs, photos, videos, tweets, digs and more. We’ll also, as soon as we can, post the videos of each of the onstage sessions, in their entirety.

Until it all kicks off, here is the list of speakers, below, in alphabetical order, who will be appearing at 2009′s D7 conference:

Irving Azoff | CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM)

Mitchell Baker | Chairman of Mozilla

Steve Ballmer | CEO of Microsoft

Carol Bartz | CEO of Yahoo

Mark Cuban | Chairman of HDNet and Owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theaters and Magnolia Pictures

Eve Ensler | Playwright and Founder of V-Day

Arianna Huffington | Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo | CEO of Nokia (NOK)

Mike Lazaridis | Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIMM)

John Lilly | CEO of Mozilla

John Malone | Chairman of Liberty Media Corporation (LCAPA)

Roger McNamee | Partner, Elevation Partners

Jon Miller | Chief Digital Officer of News Corp.

Jon Rubinstein | Executive Chairman, Palm (PALM)

Randall Stephenson | CEO of AT&T (T)

Biz Stone | Co-founder of Twitter

Owen Van Natta | CEO of MySpace

Katharine Weymouth | Publisher of the Washington Post (WPO)

Evan Williams | Co-founder and CEO of Twitter

Jeff Zucker | CEO of NBC Universal (GE)

Mozilla is not only adding its voice to that of European antitrust regulators who claim Microsoft’s (MSFT) bundling of IE with its Windows OS is anticompetitive, but offering its counsel as well. In a post to the Mozilla blog last weekend, Mozilla Corporation CEO Mitchell Baker said that she had “not the single smallest iota of doubt” that the European Commission’s preliminary conclusion that “Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between Web browsers” is correct. “I’ve been involved in building and shipping Web browsers continuously since before Microsoft started developing IE, and the damage Microsoft has done to competition, innovation, and the pace of the Web development itself is both glaring and ongoing,” Baker wrote. “There are separate questions of whether there is a good remedy, and what that remedy might be. But questions regarding an appropriate remedy do not change the essential fact. Microsoft’s business practices have fundamentally diminished (in fact, came very close to eliminating) competition, choice and innovation in how people access the Internet.”

A brutal attack and one that’s apparently only just beginning. Baker concluded her missive by volunteering Mozilla’s advice on potential remedies. “I’d like to offer Mozilla’s expertise as a resource to the EC as it considers what an effective remedy would entail,” she writes. “I’ll be reaching out to people I know with particular history, expertise and ideas regarding these topics.”

A bit like Muhammad Ali offering tips on how to score his historic fights with Joe Frazier, no? Anyway… the EC has reportedly accepted Mozilla’s offer and will allow it to participate in the case as an “interested party.”

A note about the headline: It’s a joke. I am well aware of FTP and KDE, Gnome, etc. and their non-IE browsers. No need for lectures.

[Image Credit: DeviantART/letitbeatles]

According to the organization’s latest audited financial statement, its revenue for 2007 totaled $75.1 million, up 13 percent from 2006′s $66.8 million. And 88 percent of that came came directly from Google, which pays Mozilla to be the default search engine in it Firefox browser.

So of Mozilla’s $75.1 million in 2007 revenue, $66 million was paid it by Google. That’s quite a sum. Large enough to pique the interest of the Internal Revenue Service, which is reviewing Mozilla’s nonprofit status and “challenging certain deductions,” according to Mozilla Foundation chairperson Mitchell Baker.

An interesting turn of events for Mozilla, which this time last year was claiming it would walk away from Google if that’s what it took to remain independent. “We’ve spent a lot of time and energy making sure that Google understands that it cannot turn us into an arm of Google,” Baker said at the time. “The things that make Mozilla and Firefox a success [are] the product, and the community that cares about it. First and foremost, we would protect those things,” Baker said. “If the protection of those things would come into conflict with Google, or any of our search partners, we would opt for the community who built Firefox and love Firefox…. There are other ways to make money from a browser.”

Good to know. Because you may need to pursue them when the IRS is through with you…

I met John Lilly last October on a decidedly odd techie scavenger hunt in Hawaii–trapped in a van all day while searching for tikis and such, as if we were a geek Brady Bunch (yes, BoomTown works that hard for you)–and found him to be just the kind of quietly intelligent, thoughtful and self-effacing digital exec that Silicon Valley could use a lot more of in these often frivolous, look-at-me Web 2.0 days.

Soon after, in January, he was named CEO of Mozilla Corporation, after serving as its COO. Lilly took over from Mitchell Baker, who remains Mozilla’s chairman.

The open-source software nonprofit foundation, also a for-profit start-up, is most famous for its red dragon logo and, more importantly, its increasingly popular Firefox browser, whose share has steadily increased since it debuted in late 2004.

Here’s my video interview with him about what’s next:

Firefox now has about an 18-percent share, which has climbed from 11 percent just two years ago–against Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer browser juggernaut with 74 percent and Apple’s (AAPL) Safari browser with 6 percent.

Mozilla’s recent launch of Firefox 3 should help it grow further, even though IE 8 will soon emerge out of beta too.

But on its record-setting debut day in mid-June, there were 8.3 million downloads of Firefox 3 in 24 hours. Current overall downloads have just moved past 50 million.

That means more money in the bank, although mostly from Google (GOOG), which pays Mozilla royalties for Google ad clicks that come from Firefox searches (Google is the default search box on the browser).

All is not sunshine and daisies, of course.

Besides having to keep up the innovation, Mozilla also has to keep up its technical prowess–despite the fact that it is not likely to go public and shower employees with giant gobs of overhyped stock, given its unusual status as both a profit and nonprofit.

In addition, in case you haven’t noticed, the start-up game is still rocking and it remains awfully enticing to jump into the ever-crowded pool.

For example, Mozilla lost Engineering VP Mike Schroepfer last week to Facebook, where he will be the social-networking site’s director of engineering.

But Lilly took that departure calmly, wishing him well in a classy way on his own blog, just as he seems to do most things.

Turns out, that number probably wasn’t too far off. According to an independent auditor’s report, Mozilla made $66.8 million in revenue in 2006, quite a bit of it from Google (GOOG). As former Mozilla Corp. CEO Mitchell Baker explained in a post to MozillaZine:

As in 2005 the vast majority of this revenue is associated with the search functionality in Mozilla Firefox, and the majority of that is from Google. The Firefox user base and search revenue have both increased from 2005. Search revenue increased at a lesser rate than Firefox usage growth as the rate of payment declines with volume. Other revenue sources were the Mozilla Store, public support and interest and other income on our assets.”

But those “other revenue sources” are piddling in comparison to Google’s contribution, which apparently accounts for a full 85% ($56 million or so) of Mozilla’s revenues.

So it’s supremely ironic then to hear Mozilla CEO John Lilly criticize Apple (AAPL) for distributing its Safari browser for Windows and OS X through its Software Update utility. “What Apple is doing now with their Apple Software Update on Windows is wrong,” Lilly said in a blog post on Friday. “It undermines the trust relationship great companies have with their customers, and that’s bad–not just for Apple, but for the security of the whole Web. … Apple has made it incredibly easy– he default, even–for users to install ride-along software that they didn’t ask for, and maybe didn’t want. This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices. It’s wrong because it undermines the trust that we’re all trying to build with users. Because it means that an update isn’t just an update, but is maybe something more. Because it ultimately undermines the safety of users on the Web by eroding that relationship. It’s a bad practice and should stop.”

Now, Lilly may have a point. But he’s hardly the best guy to be making it. As ZDnet’s Larry Dignan notes, Safari–like Firefox–features a Google search box, for which the search giant also presumably pays a placement fee. A sudden gain in market share for Safari at Firefox’s expense could have financial implications for Mozilla. “Let’s say Safari grabs 10% market share and Firefox falls to about 25%,” Dignan writes. “That’s fewer searches and less revenue for Mozilla. Sure, you can argue about whether Apple’s Safari move is above the board. You can also question the security implications and a bevy of other issues. But in the end, Apple’s Safari update and Mozilla’s reaction is like any other story. To truly understand it you have to follow the money.”

UPDATE: John Lilly wrote to me earlier today with a few comments about this post. Here’s what he had to say:

Hi John –

Wanted to follow up on your post just now about us and Apple and Google.

Take this for whatever it’s worth, but revenue and market share didn’t enter my mind when I posted. At Mozilla we obviously care about having enough resources to keep the lights on and pay people, and we care about having enough market share–because it means that we’ve built products that people really care about.

But competition is good and healthy, and essential. Without competition we’d all be in a pretty bad world–sort of like AT&T in the bad old days.

I’ve got zero issues with Apple using their channel to distribute other products–I think that’s a perfectly fine thing for them to do. What I worry about is that users need to trust the security updates they get from their vendors–because if they don’t–if they think there’s an ulterior motive other than keeping software up-to-date–that’s a problem for everyone.

Anyway, I respect your right to write what you think and to be skeptical of the motives of folks like me, but I do say sincerely that in this case, revenue has nothing to do with it.”