Are we losing our innovative edge? Many commentators continue to fret over this question. But at least one industry visionary tells us to look past the headlines, as the forces are now in place for the next great wave of innovation — much of which has not even been imagined yet.

Steve Gillmor saw Web entrepreneur/visionary Marc Andreessen on a recent episode of The Charlie Rose Show, and relates how Andreessen is bullish on the power of the new networking reality that is now taking shape:

“At a time when many people are saying innovation is dead along with the economy as we knew it, I can’t help but feel the hot breath of a surge in the power of the network. As Marc Andreessen reminds in his fascinating conversation with Charlie Rose, the Internet didn’t take off until the browser. The infrastructure was in place for some time already, but when the browser appeared, the TV generation sat up and took notice.

“Now we’re at the threshold of the realtime moment, and history seems to be repeating itself. For some of us, the advent of a reasonably realtime message bus over public networks has changed something about the existing infrastructure in ways that are not yet important to a broad section of Internet dwellers. The numbers are adding up — 175 million Facebook users, tens of thousands of instant Twitter followers, constant texting and video chats among the teenage crowd — a semi-secret economy of interactive media that is sucking the chewy chocolate center out of the one-way broadcast sector.”

The message is clear: the individuals and companies that let themselves get cowed by economic doom-and-gloom talk are being distracted from hopping on the next great wave. Those that are embracing social media and Web Oriented Architecture will probably be in a winning position as the new networked economy starts to roar.

The networked economy emerging before us is based on real-time interaction between various open communities, Steve relates. And the challenge is to be able to first recognize the opportunity, then learn to harness it:

“Real- time has to be managed. The first tools in any transformative period are hard coded to the sensibilities of the radicals, the pioneers on the front lines. Scoble may appear ridiculous in his zeal for the extremes of the social media envelope, but his calculation is much more conservative than you might think at first glance. By opening himself to the tyranny of the crowd, he connects with that reality we each face.”

Andreessen even identified the starting point for this new transformation: He urges print media to give up the ghost, and completely transition to online formats. “Stop the presses tomorrow…. The stocks would go up.”

He observed that even his eight-year-old daughter is well connected to friends online — a portend of what the next generation (Genertaion Z?) will bring. “I rarely see or talk with friends from high school or earlier, but what’s to prevent these virtual friendships from continuing to flourish for a lifetime? What are the consequences of the lowering of the barriers of space and time? We’re finding out, in real time.”