Web 2.0 Expo

After a long bit of keynote blogging, my brain is, frankly, toast.  So I’m taking a little quiet break at the moment sharing a power outlet with a bunch of folks all quietly working here.  Am I afraid I’m missing something?  Oh sure, of course, unfortunately if the brain isn’t on full power, the blogging well suffer.

Very interesting to walk the show floor.  I really need some kind of press badge or something.  Hmm, maybe conferences should tap “official bloggers” and give them special access to speakers and folks.  Come on all the MSM folks at the keynote, you think they were able to get their news out faster than I did?  Not a chance.

John Battelle talking to Eric Schmidt of Google (Eric Schmidt in Conversation with John Battelle) has just announced that Google is adding a presentation tool to Docs and Spreadsheets.  At this point the timeframe is next month, I believe.

Not a competitor to MS Office … yeah John (and I) are calling bullshit on that.  Yeah this could be the killer app.  Microsoft, worried?  Naw.  Zoho and the others … yeah, they should be really worried.  Really worried.

Now onto the Doubleclick purchase.  A very strategic move.  John is trying to get an answer to how the price jumped $1.1 billion so quickly.  The making sense part of this is that getting Doubleclick into better targeted areas.

How about people who are customers of both companies … like John…Eric says not to worry.

Irony, Microsoft and AT&T griping about anti-trust concerns over Google.  Yeah advertising is a choice, you know Google hold a lot of the cards now.  This is something that we will have watch.

Google, YouTube, Viacom & copyright … negotiating tactic?  Yeah.  They sued even after Google removed the problem of content.

Google’s take on S3, like GoogleApps and GoogleApps for Enterprises.  Interested in the space, direct competitor?  Hmm, a yes/no answer.  No, but we’re in the space and doing it a little differently.  Hmm.  Could Google Disk be coming?  Maybe Google Cache (caching service)?  We could really start the rumours!

While Google strongly supports net neutrality, they could survive, but it is extremely important for the growth and incubation of new ideas and  businesses.  Let’s hope they can influence the governments.

Future outlook: “Mobile, mobile, mobile”.  It is the power of stuff in your hand.  Sounds like I’d watch Google for picking up things in the mobile space, given what Eric said (in an SEC friendly way).  Also local search, hmm.

First thing Eric thinks about in the morning … e-mail.  Wow for me?  Coffee.  Eh, maybe if I think about e-mail first I’ll be able to become a CEO!

Issue for Google…scaling.  What needs to be done, how early we are in the process.  Yes, very true.

Last question…Data portability.  We create so much data…while Google wants to aggregate data, will they let us control our own data?  Yes, Eric says.  Not a trivial process.  But Google won’t trap us in their systems.

And even though Eric is on the board of Apple, he’s still waiting for an iPhone!  LOL!

More on this from O’Reilly Radar

Bill Tancer of Hitwise and David Sifry of Technorati, of course.  Bill loves data … oh yeah!  Web 2.0 growth (measuring participatory sites) … 668% growth over the past few years (sorry missed the start date … update?)

Wikipedia blows all other reference sites out of the water … well yeah … we could have guess that.  Photo sites, like Flickr … again huge growth.  Fine could have guessed that too.  Right now this is cheerleading.

Looking at Flickr (photo upload), YouTube (video upload), Wikipedia (edit).  Only .16% of people upload to YT, .2% upload to Flickr, 4.59% edit on Wikipedia … essentially more watchers, viewers, not creators.  So what we’re looking at the 1, 9, 90 rule … essentially only a few create, few interact, lots enjoy.

So does this mean that Web 2.0 can’t sustain itself?  Clearly the opposite. The appetite for content is huge, so the question isn’t will people come, it’s how can we push that participatory percentage up?

YouTube went from nothing to market leader in 6 weeks!  Good thing Google bought them, eh?

Ilovedata.com

And now the David Sifry show… State of the Live Web… hmm me thinks this will be similar to his post. Which it is, and that’s okay.  So I’ll play with LeapTag and kinda shelve Dave off until John Battelle gets on stage.  Sorry Dave …

This would be the social conscience segment of the conference … talking about providing emergency housing and infrastructure.  Talking about using the power of social networks to help solve issues and barriers.

What is cool is that technology and collaborative techniques to improve and enhance these fast-build structures.  Then take this also to the people who are going to need and live in these houses.  Asking them for input on the design.  What could be better?  What is needed?

This is Web 2.0 for good.  This is something we should help and support.  …. openarchitecturenetwork.org.  Can this help us not repeat the mistakes of the past?  Can this help us make better social housing?  Better sustainable housing?

Wow a foldable cardboard porta-clinic!  Disaster housing shouldn’t last long.  Interesting.  Make sure people start to build new structures, etc.  Now what if they can’t?

“Design like you give a Damn”

What does it mean to be Mobile 2.0.  Cell phones and other devices are very, very powerful devices.  So what does this mean?  Is the network ready for it (the mobile network that is)?

You know thus far people haven’t been talking about the cost of data transfers.  I think mobile companies are just making a killing on us using all these amazing apps.  Hey, I’m addicted to my Google apps on my Blackberry, and I’ve been going into withdrawal being down here and not wanting to connect because the data costs for me would be insane.  I don’t want to think about my cell bill next month!

Interesting, they are focused on the open platform and UI.  Hmm, is that the real barrier?

Nokia as an Internet company?  Is that a bad thing?  Maybe because I’m not hooked into the the mobile industry to see the problem.

Okay session over … whew cause really mobile doesn’t float my boat.

It is Tuesday isn’t it?  Don’t ask.  Learning from yesterday I jumped up and got up here fast, and found power on the right side of the room (and a chair).

Ah the intro, very nice.  Just saw Jeremiah walk by to get a picture.  This afternoon … the UnConference … w00t!  That’s where I’ll be!

Okay that and the Nokia party tonight…

Swivel, a place for data.  God I hope this isn’t going to be a product pitch.  Sorry I’m just dying for some cool stuff.

Half the data in the world (at least) is missing from the Net.  Swivel is trying to fix that … okay how.

OECD is the founding member of Swivel to help get their data up, out there and available.  That is cool.

vidoop a new what to secure passwords … very innovative.  Images with letters tied to categories.  Not hackable.   You need human cognition to make it work.  I think this is going to need a post on its own.  I’m going to have to wander down to the booth.  They tie into OpenID.  Hmm, this is cool, but the big question is going to be how will people implement it?  When will we see it?

Tellme, a phone/voice portal tool (they were just picked up by Microsoft I gather). 1-800-555-tellme (that number doesn’t seem right).  So it’s a voice service.  Oooh nice on the mobile phone.  Wonder if this works in Canada?  Doubt it.  Tellme is getting the hook.

Jeanette Gibson of Cisco is introing the this group to how Cisco uses blogs … externally to communicate with the public and media (the example is one on privacy and China and such).

Here’s something that I’ve heard so many times before … they started their blog without a formal policy. Then they developed one, with the help of legal of course, and the stuff is standard … don’t be stupid (essentially).

The iPhone lawsuit  … oh this is going to be good.  The Cisco approach was take it head on.  They blogged their statement, and participated in the discussion.  Yeah bloggers took Cisco to task on the Apple lawsuit thing, but you know at least they were out there.  The slide Jeanette just showed that there was very little blog chatter about earnings, it was all iPhone.  See?

The WebEx deal, same thing.  Out there, adding something beyond the press release.

Event blogs … well gee that’s good timing.  See Cisco gets it.  They blog from events!  There you go.  The behind the scenes look into a conference and giving people a look into what’s going on at the conference (especially for those who aren’t there).

The questions from the audience are pretty basic, but interesting and good.  Thus far the blogger outreach question is interesting.  Bottom line … do your research.

Cisco on Second Life … OMG, why?  Yeah it’s cool, but … well of course.  The 3D interactive web is the future … goofy maybe, but it’s true.  Just read some William Gibson if you don’t believe me (The Bridge Trilogy is appropriate given my location).  Jeanette says their customers are in SL … yeah true and frankly this kind of intense web activity is up their alley.  A 3D demo of a product in SL!  Okay that would be extremely cool.  Cisco has three islands in SL.

Oh the metrics question, yeah the hard numbers aren’t there, but when the WSJ looks to the blog for info and not PR, that really is a good thing.  Jeanette says, though, that they are trying to build more tools for that.  Let’s hope they release cool tools to the rest of us!

Legal concerns, SEC, all that … you know that stuff is important, but is not impossible.  You just have to be aware and handle them.

BTW … they use Movable Type for their blogs, oh well and here I thought they were cool ;-).

Jeanette has made, perhaps, the most important point here.  A blog is a time commitment.  If you start, you need to blog regularly.  If you can’t do it alone, get a team.  If you’re a CEO, set expectations on what posting frequency to expect.  Jim Turner and I see this so often.  Businesses who would like to blog, but just didn’t realize that you just have to keep doing it!

Blogger outreach, not just for evangelism, but linking to other people and commenting, very important.

I’m going to close off this post so I can get a good seat (near power!) for the keynotes!

Thanks to Renee for connecting me with the folks at LeapTag.  Frankly, I was a skeptic.  Come on do we really need another tagging thingy?  Well I was completely wrong.  It isn’t about “tagging” as we think of it, or even like StumbleUpon or del.icio.us … it’s about information and it’s extremely cool.

I got a personal demo and explanation of this new IE add-on … and I think that’s what made the difference.  It might be one of those apps that someone who uses it has to show and explain it to you.  But enough blathering, what does it do?

Okay … imagine your looking for information.  Oh right, we’re all looking for information.  Fine.  How do you find the latest stuff?  RSS searches, RSS feeds, Google, Google News, etc and such.  Great.  Very time consuming isn’t it?  For me it is, very high chaff to wheat ratio for me.  Lot’s of stuff I read, lots of stuff just passed by.  LeapTag takes this process of finding information to the next level.

You create a tag … which is more like a subject or concept or company you’re interested in…then LeapTag searches the Net and blogosphere for content that it thinks matches the concept/interest.  Fine, high chaff to wheat problem again, right?  Yes, at first.  The cool bit is that as you look at the results you vote Love it (matches) or Hate it (no match) … then via the magic of intelligent design the results get more and more refined.  LeapTag looks that the concepts and content of the results that you love and hate to build a profile to just keep giving you better and better results.

I haven’t hada chance to really put it through its paces yet.  Not connected enough and not enough time, but from the three real tags I created … the results are very impressive.

Oh did I tell you that you can import your RSS feeds from Yahoo, Bloglines or Google Reader?  Yeah then what you’re already looking for becomes fodder for information.  They tell me that my 400+ feeds in Google Reader is going to be a great stress test for them.  Well … I’m always into that.

This is an appl you should try.  Really.

I was getting a demo of LeapTag (which is extremely cool and I’ll post more about it later) so I missed the rush to get into the 3rd floor room to see the keynotes.

You know this isn’t a bad thing.  Lots of room down here.  I found an outlet and a chair … so I’m listening to Tim O’Reilly give his keynote …

Tim doesn’t think that we’re heading to a bubble, he figures that we’re at the VisiCalc era.  Good intro (cheerleading really) for Jeff Bezos.

Jeff Bezos …

Building new services.  There is a significant building phase that builds the stability and scale you will need to succeed.  Mechanical Turk … artificial artificial intelligence?

There is a cost to building and the cost cannot be ignored or cheapened (no shortcuts … that’s my take).

Amazon’s S3 data service was the big focus of his talk.  And … I have to admit that I was really looking for the wow factor.  But … it’s a great tale of where things can progress.  Okay … humour … moving your data from your servers to S3.  Jeff says they can grow and scale.  Hmm, maybe yes, maybe no.

Okay … the Internet as a platform.  Well, who would have bet that we’d have the bandwidth we have now that would make this possible.

 Just to update this … O’Reilly Radar has nice coverage of the keynote … since I stepped out from it to talk with Natanel of Maxthon.