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Looking for "the next big thing" is a crap shoot.

If what you want is all the consulting work you could ever possibly do, then learning more PHP will get you that. Stick with Wordpress and/or pick up Symfony, CodeIgniter, just about anything except Zend (and for the love of all things holy, do NOT go anywhere near Magento if you value your sanity).

If you're OK working a bit harder to find gigs but likely making more from them when you do (and facing less competition), Ruby/Rails or Python/Django would be good choices. You could go for more obscure languages and frameworks, but at that point you may have a hard time selling your services.

Starting with iOS (or Android) is also something to consider. People often don't realize that, when you get into full-stack web development, you have to be proficient with many technologies and software packages just to get a site working, tested, and deployed. While you'll likely end up having to expand into more than just ObjectiveC or Java fairly quickly when you work with mobile (don't get stuck in the PhoneGap/Appcelerator rut), a basic mobile app on either platform will be simpler to build and manage than a basic dynamic website.




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