What has been the most infectious idea lately?

SAN FRANCISCO (Fortune) -- In preparation for the iMeme: The Thinkers of Tech conference, Fortune asked dozens of technology gurus the following question: What, for you, has been the most surprising infectious idea of the past year? Click on the names to read how Esther Dyson, Bill Joy, Jonathan Schwartz, among others, answered, or simply scroll down.

Richard Barton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Zillow.com I am a little conflicted here, but the viral/buzz appeal and attraction of Zillow has surprised and pleased me hugely, obviously. It's really hard to find a cutting edge Web site that isn't wholly "owned" by the young, hip folks that are the children of most of us. We generally scratch our heads and wonder what these kids are doing with all of this Facebook, Bebo and SMS. Zillow is one of those cutting edge applications that has really captured the imaginations of adults. Another great viral idea is www.geni.com a viral family tree site.

Marc Benioff, Founder, Chairman, and CEO salesforce.com, Inc. (Charts) The rise of the enterprise mashup. When mashups first began to get some buzz, they seemed both useful and fun, like craigslist and Google maps. And they were all with consumer apps. But we started incorporating them into our apps, mashing up our platform with Google, Skype, Adobe, and many, many others. And we are not alone. The community has really embraced this idea, and it's amazing to me how quickly the enterprise has, too. There is a compression in the lag between consumer technology and the emergence of its business iteration, and that's encouraging to me.

Eva Chen, Co-founder and CEO, Trend Micro, Inc. (USA) Instant two-way communication was the infectious idea ever since the Internet came alive, because it unveils the fundamental nature of the human being who wants to be connected, is afraid to be alone, and wants to be heard. So the most infectious ideas during the past decade have always had something to do with two-way communication -- cell phone, email, instant messenger, SKYPE, blog, SMS, YouTube, MySpace and more. But for the past year, unfortunately, it is Web threats that have taken over and taken advantage of these advances. Hey, the idea of making money by using other people's computers has spread, through the use of Web downloaders, rootkits, spambots, clickbots, and phishes, and that industry has grown from nothing to estimates of more than eight billion dollars in two years. You must admit, it is literally and figuratively a very infectious idea!

John Clippinger, Senior Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society Harvard Law School Paris Hilton. I just don't get it. User-generated content, from YouTube to MySpace to blogs to Flickr to Wikipedia. I just would not have thought it would have happened on the scale and the speed it has. It has something that I have advocated and predicted for years, but the pace of its takeoff and the speed of adoption and use by so many segments has taken my breath away. This and other web innovations have altered my time scale for predicting the speed and scope of future digital innovations. In short, the conditions are ripening for accelerated viral effects. There is a kind of exponential compounding effect of innovations that is going to make each day less and less like the day that preceded it.

Esther Dyson, Editor, Release 1.0 and founder of EDventure Holdings Facebook as a platform.

Steve Fambro, Chief Executive Officer, Aptera Motors I'd say it's been the revival of the electric car. It's cool; they can be sexy and efficient, and they make a lot of sense as a tool to help stop pollution of all sorts: Particulates, hydrocarbons, and even noise. They've always been around, even before most gas cars, but now... now they're "in" and I think they're here to stay. Public interest and the clean tech investment climate have begun the process of mainstreaming electric cars.

Louise Guay, President and Founder, My Virtual Model, Inc. Communities and virtual worlds are ubiquitous in the media and in perceptions of people as trends. We went from mass media to personal media; the advertising is also morphing to customer relationship and avatar-based advertising. These changes were possible because of the wiki and the user-generated content applications: dictionaries, encyclopedias, Flickr, etc. Crowd sourcing and the open source movement are allowing a true democratization of innovation. Eric Von Hippel has shown how logical it is for corporations to open their innovation centers to users. With virtual models, the personalization is now visual, providing a true interface for customization and co-design. It seems that mobility with standards and interoperability will reach out with devices like cells, iPhones, PDAs, etc. Personal communities and networks as virtual worlds will surround users in unprecedented ways. It will start by personal catalogs and stores and extend wherever it will be needed and wanted by the users. The passage from 2D to 3D on the Web as well as the virtual identity is the next big thing.

Bill Joy, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Focusing nearly exclusively on greentech innovation, I have been surprised by the large number of people with the "idea" to start a solar photovoltaic company. The explosion of such companies is reminiscent of the early days of the personal computer industry. It speaks volumes to the ultimate importance of such renewable energy sources, and is truly hopeful.

Mark Lewis, Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer, EMC Corporation Television programming - in the conventional sense, not in the YouTube sense - delivered online. Companies like Apple, Joost and Babelgum have joined major networks in offering programming on-demand, and its growth has been faster than I would have thought. High bandwidth connections delivered to the home have long promised alternative entertainment, but content aggregators seem to be delivering it better than commercial content producers. In hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised at all. TiVo showed the world that people want to watch TV when they want - not when networks want them to. Now that platforms are allowing subscribers to watch how they want, whether it's on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device, and what they want by choosing from hundreds of channels, online programming will continue to grow.

Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President and Chief Advertising Strategist,Microsoft Corporation (Charts, Fortune 500) The most surprisingly infectious idea for me personally is the work Microsoft is doing with our SeaDragon incubation: http://labs.live.com/Seadragon.aspx. It hasn't gone mainstream yet, but the promise of what this technology will do for the future of web navigation, ecommerce and advertising, and applications like Photosynth which are now in development is limitless. The hyperlink structure of the web is powerful, but the ability to create more immersive experiences with some of the SeaDragon technology has me almost giddy.

Harriet Pearson, VP Regulatory Policy & Chief Privacy Officer, IBM Corporation (Charts, Fortune 500) For me, it's the new understanding of how corporations organize themselves to do business in a more-networked, "flattening" world. We've been using the phrase "globally integrated enterprise," but whatever it's called, there isn't a doubt that thinkers and leaders understand that something different is afoot -- that there's a recasting of organizational design that's reflecting and taking advantage of global communications and trade networks. This idea comes with its own set of challenges, of course. What does it mean to lead and work for a globally integrated enterprise, and what is its role in society?

Tomaso Poggio, Eugene McDermott Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; Co-director, Center for Biological and Computational Learning Massachusetts Institute of Technology As a mostly good infection, Wikipedia, a sign that many people are ready to work towards a collective intelligence without the need of monetary rewards. As a mostly bad infection, YouTube. Why are people wasting so much time instead of solving really hard and important problems in science and technology?

Geordie Rose, Founder and CTO, D-Wave Systems Inc. That quantum computers are now sufficiently advanced that they are one click away from anyone with an internet connection. This was far in advance of most prognostications.

Jonathan Schwartz, CEO and President, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Charts, Fortune 500)Twitter, a service to connect people across the world in 140 characters or less. Who would think they could build millions of registered users, send hundreds of millions of SMS messages, or start to build a distribution network that advertisers and media companies had to begin paying attention to?

Sol Trujillo, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra Corp. Ltd. The most infectious idea this year has to be the self-generated content phenomenon. The platforms where everyone or anyone can express themselves in virtually any media form to anyone or anywhere in the world without "formal" agreements has been amazing.

Padmasree Warrior, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Motorola, Inc. (Charts, Fortune 500) The most surprising and infectious idea in the past year has been the ability to time-, place- and device-shift media. Think of how viewing habits have changed with DVR's that allow people to take control of program schedules. People are now creating their own video programs and sharing them online for others to watch. We are now moving TV and video content from the living room to the mobile device. This shift is revolutionizing the video and broadcast industry.

Lee Thorn, Chair, Jhai Foundation I would say that is Jhai's own. It is that economic development and improved education and health care can be vastly accelerated using information and communication technology. However, this can only be successful if done sustainably. Sustainable development can only be achieved if people in villages "own" the process of development through reconciling and self-interested dialog with people who listen carefully and with utmost respect.

Bruno Wu, Chairman, The Sun Media Investment Holding Group of Companies Online magazines in China have become the epitome in China. My wife started one in November of 2005, and it has grown to 40m women visitors a month. The whole of China has started the online magazine frenzy since then.