My first job out of college was a Webmaster for a military service academy in Annaplis, MD. This was back in 1998 before Webmasters were known as Developers. I read everything I could get my hands on. I read books by Lynda Weinman, religiously checked Web Pages that Suck everyday for the latest sucker, and could recite Webmonkey's Anatomy of a Redesign on command.
One particular resource that I studied as if it were gospel, was Jakob Nielson's http://www.useit.com It was the place on the Web to learn about Web site usability and I had most of his Alertbox articles printed out and stored away in binders. Other people have since emerged, but Mr. Nielson consistently delivers the most relevant and insightful information on the topic.
After all, he has been blogging the Alertbox since 1998 with his fist post being The Web in 1998: Some Predictions. While I haven't gone though all of them, he is frighteningly accurate.
In the future, increased use of XML will allow far more intelligent data interchange between sites and thus for more advanced value-added Web services.
He nailed a total bull's eye with that one. RSS feeds are an example of this intelligent data transfer that he wrote about over 9 years ago. I'd like to see what he has in store for RSS now that 
is everwhere.
