There is always talk of where the web could go next.

Constantly seeking the next “big thing”, entrepreneurs and large companies alike are pouring time, money, and intelligence into figuring out the next cool thing that can be done with the network that has the ability to connect us all.

But where can the web go from here?

The best answer to that question can be taken from extrapolating where we’ve come from into the future. Here’s what I think will be big in the coming months and years.

A few evenings ago, I got home and found my Twitter timeline flooded by tweets from just about every source possible except Twitter. It lead me to have a bit of a rant…

Right, one more Foursquare, Gowalla or Fallen London tweet and I’m going to unleash a rage-filled blog post on yo’ asses. - Me

And here we are a few days later. With these tweets continuing.

Permit me to explain why they, quite simply, make me rage.

OAuth is an often confusing protocol, that can be very difficult to get started with and nigh-on impossible to debug.

With that in mind, I set out to learn more about OAuth, why it’s there, how it works, and what you can do with it.

Of course the best way to do this is to actually get developing. So I got my PHP out, fired up my favourite IDE, and got started.

Here’s what I learnt, from the beginning, and it will hopefully save anyone else getting started with OAuth a bit of time and a lot of confusion.