Well, Web 2.o is still going on today, but I am back in the office full-time–hey, we’re shipping tons of stuff all quarter!
Some takeways:
Form–There were three conferences going on:

  • The formal expo, which was focused on people who needed to learn, or as someone from San Francisco said “Catch up”
  • The unconference/open group, which was an extended, facilitated conversation among people who knew one another mostly, happening within and parallel to #1
  • The hallway con, always the best part, where friends, colleagues, vendors and the random connections of strangers made for the most fascinating–and the most trivial–talk.

Highlights of #1 for me were Dave Hornick’s talk (because he is both smart and a smart-ass); the Facebook guys’ talk about their API, and the session Heather and Derek did the first day.

#2 were the moments when Tara was facilitating a discussion with Brad Templeton and others around OpenID, something we have to resolve into an open-source standard (or create a trillian equivalent).

#3 was many fold:

  • Catching up with Mary Hodder, Dave Winer, Steve Gillmor, Robert Goldberg, Ali Macondary, Rich Skrenta, Keith Teare, Chris Heuer, Shannon Clark, Ted Rheingold, Jory Des Jardins, Dave McClure and a whole bunch of other folks at various social events
  • Reuniting with three old friends from Netscape and AOL, all of whom I had not seen in 4 years
  • Chatting with NY-er Tristan Louis, a much-appreciated blog friend
  • Meeting an acquaintance from Canada, who wanted to get into the online dating field and has now moved to the Bay area to do work for a small dating service (that was so cool).

Substance:

  • Once again a ton of money in the conference business if you do it right like these folks did
  • Web 2.0 is a bubble, but grounded alot more in user behavior and real use cases than in pure investment frenzy
  • We’re only half-way through what will be a profound disruption in distribution, content creation, and e-commerce/revenue models
  • OpenID is a huge opportunity and no one’s in the lead figuring this out

So now, it’s back to work.


Well, Web 2.o is still going on today, but I am back in the office full-time–hey, we’re shipping tons of stuff all quarter!
Some takeways:
Form–There were three conferences going on:

  • The formal expo, which was focused on people who needed to learn, or as someone from San Francisco said “Catch up”
  • The unconference/open group, which was an extended, facilitated conversation among people who knew one another mostly, happening within and parallel to #1
  • The hallway con, always the best part, where friends, colleagues, vendors and the random connections of strangers made for the most fascinating–and the most trivial–talk.

Highlights of #1 for me were Dave Hornick’s talk (because he is both smart and a smart-ass); the Facebook guys’ talk about their API, and the session Heather and Derek did the first day.

#2 were the moments when Tara was facilitating a discussion with Brad Templeton and others around OpenID, something we have to resolve into an open-source standard (or create a trillian equivalent).

#3 was many fold:

  • Catching up with Mary Hodder, Dave Winer, Steve Gillmor, Robert Goldberg, Ali Macondary, Rich Skrenta, Keith Teare, Chris Heuer, Shannon Clark, Ted Rheingold, Jory Des Jardins, Dave McClure and a whole bunch of other folks at various social events
  • Reuniting with three old friends from Netscape and AOL, all of whom I had not seen in 4 years
  • Chatting with NY-er Tristan Louis, a much-appreciated blog friend
  • Meeting an acquaintance from Canada, who wanted to get into the online dating field and has now moved to the Bay area to do work for a small dating service (that was so cool).

Substance:

  • Once again a ton of money in the conference business if you do it right like these folks did
  • Web 2.0 is a bubble, but grounded alot more in user behavior and real use cases than in pure investment frenzy
  • We’re only half-way through what will be a profound disruption in distribution, content creation, and e-commerce/revenue models
  • OpenID is a huge opportunity and no one’s in the lead figuring this out

So now, it’s back to work.