Web 2.0 Summit 2006 - San Francisco

Web 2.0 Summit Summary

2006-11-11T08:08:00.000-08:00

Well, the Summit is over now. Yes, there was a lot of hype. But, there were gems, epiphanies, and confirmations that made the whole thing worthwhile. Here are some take-aways:

# Amazon sells its excess capacity, expertise
# Mobile Web is just the Web and it's adoption is the next big thing
# Crowdsourcing - a web of humans is powerful
# User Experience, esp. emotional, is king
# Software is free
# We are in the age of mass collaboration, an age of knowledge-based production instead of resource-based production
# "People love to transact business on the internet, but when it comes to learning features or dealing with problems, people want to deal with other people." - Bob Parsons, GoDaddy.com
# "It is tough to succeed: 2% of the companies created about 100% of the wealth." - Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley
# Ratio of eBay listings to classified ads has moved from 1:35 to 9:1
# "We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing." - R. D. Liang
# 50% of the market is not on the Web. Adoption will come not because of the technology but to solve the pain.
# The Business users keep finding new ways to subvert IT. Will these powerful emerging technologies be blocked by the enterprise?

I'll add more in a future post. Please feel free to add your own comments.

Kevin Rose Presents

2006-11-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

Behind the scenes at Digg.com.

How news breaks at Digg. 600,000 registered editors looking for news and digging them.

Rumsfield news broke a record. Saw it hit the AP and 3 or 4 minutes later it hit the Digg web page. Google News did not pick it up for another 20 some minutes.

How can we further enable users to break news?

33% of the Rumsfield diggs occurred in Swarm. Stories appear as a little bubble. As more users digg a story, the bubble grows. Rumsfield swarm grew to a gigantic bubble. Multiple stories attach themselves to each other.

They are working to give these tools to web publishers. Will be launching a Flash toolkit to let individuals do this on their own.

Gaining

Users are attempting to gain the system. Users try to get their stories noticed. Digg does things to prevent this but still let the community contribute. They are letting the users control the spam. Also, they are looking at user behavior as stories are "dugg". Looking at patterns of healthy stories: referrer, upcoming stories, 90% no referrer detection. Kevin displayed a chart of a story's life with strange behavior compared to a baseline. All the same IP address, same user digging the same story, etc.

Another effort: They are detecting prescient users: users who can forecast trends.

Another version coming out next month.

Battelle Recognizes...

2006-11-09T12:35:00.000-08:00

Among others, John recognized Intel's Information Suite announcement.

Harnessing Collective Intelligence

2006-11-09T11:57:00.000-08:00

Tim O'Reilly: Everything will be connected as we move toward a Web 2.0 world, where the network is the platform.

Jim Buckmaster , Richard Rosenblatt , Toni Schneider , Owen Van Natta

User generated content (UGC). Collaboration.

Tim: Jim, at Craig's List, how did you accomplish so much with only 20 some employees?
Jim: Put the users to work for you.
Tim: How do you listen to millions of customers with only 23 employees?
Jim: Employees start talking about the good ideas.
Tim: How did it start?
Jim: Craig started as a hobby, and it grew.

Tim: Richard, you did something interesting things at MySpace. Tell us what you are doing at Demand Media.
Richard: We learned from MySpace that UGC was a tremendous opportunity. You can build a media company based on UGC. We are seeing tremendous growth in the 35-plus (age group?). At Demand Media, we are targeting a specific area. Hiking and Outdoor Sports - more about sharing knowledge than pictures.
Tim: DM is a way to bring MySpace type functionality into vertical markets.
Richard: We'll do this through a suite of tools that will help with the publishing. We just launched weHow, similar to eHow, to let anyone become an expert on anything. Launched in just two weeks. Allows the contributor to get paid.
Tim: Venture capital - you raised $20MM. Many say it doesn't take much to get started.
Richard: We raised the money in two rounds and bought 9 companies. Consider Trail. We added the UGC tools to allow people to expand the content from just hiking to kayaking, etc.

Tim: Toni about getting started.
Toni: We are extremely focused on our users, and turning them into collaborators. It's about bringing people in and letting them contribute. The libertarian model of software development. Everything is open to the users. New themes and providing support to one another. What we have learned is that we can take the principals of open source and apply them in the company.
Tim: Collective intelligence is about UGC.
Toni: Wish we could stop using UGC. It doesn't describe everything. Consider our spam effort. We have seen a doubling of spam on our blogs in the last 3 weeks. Let the centralized server learn from the feedback of users -- but it's not UGC.

Tim: Owen, talk about Facebook. What did you learn at Amazon that you brought with you?
Owen: Facebook increases the information flow around people. We build the tools, platforms, and vessels that let the users to communicate and share information. It is highly effective. In terms of what we do as a company. What we brought from Amazon. Our founder is very user centric. Jeff Bezos wants to be the most customer-centric company in the world.
Tim: Many are moving from MySpace to Facebook. Why? Or, is that true?
Owen: I'm not sure that is true. Our tools and platform are allowing people to come together in a way that was not possible [this is Web 2.0].

Richard: Roll out features based on the marketing.

Tim: What's the biggest thing you learned?

Toni: When trying to bring in users and get them to collaborate, we realized you have to open things up and give up control. A lot of big companies still think closed systems will protect them. What you need to be able to do is give up control and hand it over to the users. Translation, for example. Let the users translate the documents. [Good idea.] Generally, very high quality. Very quick to achieve internationalization.

Richard: Don't believe when everybody tells you it's a bad idea. MySpace was poo-pooed. Focus on what you believe in and give the power to the users.

Jim: Listen to the users early and often. Cuban cigars for sale on Craig's List is the only area where they had to disagree with users. It's illegal.

Owen: Who you decide to put in charge of various areas. Lack of experience can be good. These people are not encumbered with the "it's not going to work" attitude. If I push hard to get the things on my agenda instead of letting the coooerative decide, we wouldn't have accomplished so much.

Q: Knowledge vs. opinion. What is the definition of intelligence?
A: Tim: Sturgeon's Law: 95% of science fiction is crap, well 95% of everything is crap. It's the 5% that matters. We are doing well to get to the 5% through user review. Toni added the users encourage relevance. Excitement grows around what's really relevant.

Q: What sorts of things are you doing outside of UGC?
A: Owen: Facebook has launched Share, which allows users to share information with other users. It allows from collaboration and commentary, then others can share with others. Enabling people to have more control over the sharing of information.

Q: Amazing communities are doing the heavy lifting. How do you view your role?
A: Richard: We have two roles: 1) provide the best tools and technologies, structure and format, which promotes the creation of UGC. Everyone wants to publish but they don't know how. 2) We need to police the activity to keep disruptive people out who would otherwise spoil the experience. Owen added: We need to give the people the control of the information and the sharing of the information (openness). Toni (?): We need to understand user behavior.

Web 2.0 Alumni

2006-11-09T11:28:00.000-08:00

Jason Calacanis , Satish Dharmaraj , Dmitry Shapiro , Michael Tanne

Zimbra Collaboration Suite. Offline client released today. For use when an Internet connection is not available, like when you are on a plane or at this conference. Open source version available on site.

Veoh - Internet Television - hi res, short or long. Similar to YouTube.

Wink - Social Search Engine. Collections now support rich media. 1000's of collections. Video. Images. The Ramones. Warcraft videos. Search for people.

Weblogs - launched last year; sold to AOL.

From The Labs

2006-11-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

Next is a 45-minute session entitle "From the Labs", featuring Eric Billingsley (eBay), Gary Flake (Microsoft), Roger Meike (Sun).

eBay

Eric is up first. Shares metrics. $1,608 sold per second. A vehicle every 2 minutes. Diamonds every 83 seconds.

Mission: Invent the future of e-Commerce

eBay Research Labs (eRL): 1/3 of time spent Consulting (drive to root cause); 1/3 Pure Research (design solutions); 1/3 Technology Transfer (prototype and implement).

Focus:
* Core Technology
** Adaptive Learning (machine learning)
** Info retrieval
** Trust
* Operational Excellence
** Grid technologies
** New HW platforms
** Optimization
* New Opportunities
** Social Commerce
** Power of Three

The Team (of about 30)

Prototypes:
* Best Match
* Social Commerce

Best Match

Currently, a search for iPod Nano retrieves just about everything but an iPod Nano. Based on previous users searches and feedback, they can make the search better for future users. System evolves with the aggregate.

Social Commerce

Pulls up a cluster diagram, probably Flash like a music search site I've seen. Each node is near other related nodes. Related purchases develops into an intricate web. Trading cards are related to Star Wars, Star Trek, Comic books.

Q: Where are they with search?
A: Intense focus. Many new items all the time. Keeping up with the community. Rates eBay search as a 5 (on a scale of 5?). Look at eBay Express.

[Once again, wireless sucks at this confernece.]

Q: Where do the ideas come from?
A: Consulting. People ask for thier opinions. They begin to see patterns in the Enterprise and create solutions to individual problems that have a positive affect on larger problems in the Enterprise. eBay Search - nothing like it exists. 50% of the ideas they work on end up in production.

Q: Paypal and Skype relationships.
A: Arms length working relationships. Calls them very smart.

Q: How do you integrate technologies into production without disturbing the production environment?
A: Works closely with various teams.

Sun

Roger works on projects that may never see the light of day.

Project Blackbox: They have put a data center in a shipping container and they are able to ship it anywhere and have it up and running in 30 minutes. This is the participation age. You have to be able to scale in a short period of time. Project Blackbox lends well to this idea. A new word: Yadabyte. Another system they are using is P2P and can address up to 19 Yadabytes.

Digital Rights Management: It's not just about copy protecting music. This technology could be applied to protect your medical records.

Proximity Communication: chips can communicate based on proximity. They created a machine that listens to music and characterizes it. It creates a visualization space that you can fly through. My commute is 45 minutes. I'm in the mood for hard rock now, but I want to be relaxed by the time I get home. Machine can DJ the music to fit these constraints.

3D Accelerometer: showed a mobile-battery-sized object that is completely programmed in Java running only on chips. Hooks up to servos are available. The 3DA detects motion. Roger waved the device back and forth and a message was displayed by manipulating onboard LEDs: This is a Sun Spot.

Showed a robot that had a remote control that caused movements based on the planar attitude of the remote control.

Why is he showing this here?

Sun is interested in sharing their technology for us to use. They will create the cool platforms that will inspire us to build the next big thing. They have a $500 development kit at sunspotworld.com.

Microsoft

Gary Flake gives an overview: Brief introduction of Live Labs. Then we'll talk about a new technology release: Photo Synth.

Set up continues...

Virtual Earth 3D - Active X plugin.

Set up continues...

VE3D hooks into Photo Synth (the long tail).

Live Labs: Creates new hybrid career tracks within MS; efficiently bridges efforts across the company; better positions MS to identify and drive unique opportunities. Sounds like eBusiness at BNSF.

* Ability to author, use, and relate digital objects by anyone in the company.
** (push, publish, tag, comment, extend, annotate, aggregate)
* Richness of the dist digital ecosystem
** (learn, analyze, optimize, experiment)
* Value from net work effectgs and plaform efficencies
** (find, search, use)
* goto top

Photosynth Demo

Encourages us to play with this client/server Active X application but not with the conference wireless. Relates all the photos together. Ties them together panoramically. Visualizing hundreds of photos with rich experience. Zoom in/out. Splatter mode. All photos relate to center. Can click on others and recreate the splatter. Rectangles are skewed left, right, up, down to show from which angle the picture was taken. Really cool application. Nice animation. Creates a 3D walk-through experience.

When you go to the web site, install the Active X plug in. Then, you will be able to browse all their collections.

http://labs.live.com/photosynth/

Yahoo! with a new Web 2.0 Demo

2006-11-09T09:09:00.000-08:00

Brad Garlinghouse , Ethan Diamond

Not seen before (except by very few at Yahoo!).

Changing of the Guard. Web 2.0 is not about the people in this room anymore; it's about the mass audience.

Web 2.0 definition per the site: moving applications from the desktop to the web and using the web as a platform.

Brad thinks Web 2.0 is dead.

Web 2.0 experiences will continue to thrive. But we can do more. Technical functionality is becoming commoditized. The user experience is the focus. We are slaves to our emotions.

Consumers act on emotions. Fear and anger are dominant motivators, in this case a fear of isolation. Examples of text messages shown on screen.

Connect Belong Express - Consumers act on Emotions.

Yahoo! Mail demo.

Ethan Diamond.

Compose: types a few letters and autocompletes. Indicator says he's online so I can chat with him now. Session transforms to a chat session. Brad went offline. Link allows Ethan to complete conversation by email, chat session is retained.

A few days go by with no response from the other person. Ethan follows up with a new email. Brad goes online. Ethan detects this and switches to chat.

Left nav has folders and address book. Address book shows 49 of his contacts are online right now. He can browse.

Tab across the top highlights a new incoming chat message.

Conclusion: Demo takes existing Web 2.0 technology and creates a new user experience that works in a way the user finds intuitive but was never possible.

MySQL - The Great Database in the Sky

2006-11-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

An interview with Mårten Mickos at the Web 2.0 Summit

1B on the internet, 2b on mobile.

What if we shared data?

Google: unstructured people (consumers) get unstructured data. MySQL gives structured users structured data. Could MySQL extend this to all data as Google has? This is the Great Database in the Sky idea.

Innovation happens elsewhere > Data happens everywhere.

Open source your data.

My data + your data + public data = next gen OLAP.

It's already out there; just not connected yet.

What if we could Skype all the data?

Example: Weather Data

What if you could access the weather data in real time from across the world? Follow El Nino, plan your sailing trip. Consumer behavior, Real estate, travel, events, etc.

It is now possible.

Would need a DNS for data servers. Routing may be an issue. How do you make data definitions understandable? $? TEchnologies:
* RSS
* Atom
* Jabber
* HTML
* HTTP
* XML
* SQL

What would it take?

* Willingness to open the data
* Brokerage to keep track of who has what
* New technology for accessing the data

The Data is the Platform

Marten would like to partner with us. marten@mysql.com

Q: How is this different than the semantic web?
A: Semantic is much more than this. S contains unstructured data.

Ray Ozzie at Web 2.0

2006-11-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

Ray Ozzie

Read it at Read/WriteWeb.

Beating Google

2006-11-08T17:39:00.000-08:00

Jim Lanzone , Steve Berkowitz

Read Read/WriteWeb's entry here.

What GoDaddy Knows - Bob Parsons

2006-11-08T14:49:00.000-08:00

People love to transact business on the internet, but when it comes to learning features or dealing with problems, people want to deal with other people.

2005 Super Bowl - Mike's Hard Lemonade ad firm. Ad was rejected by every network. Bob only saw the ad because he was watching professional bullriding on OLN.

Two spots were purchased. The second was cancelled after the first spot was shown. The cancellation created huge traffic to the godaddy.com site. It is now used in college marketing classes as an example of success.

Don't forget the fundamentals and be careful who you listen to.

Ning

2006-11-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

Custom Social Network Site creation

Weddings.

Former Congressional Pages.

Football teams/leagues.

Cutecast. Video player is branded for the Cutecast site. Videos can be shared with others. Video player retains branding.

In the future, a new release is coming. Fully customizable. The Getaways.

Final Points:

1. Existing services, Flickr, MySpace, etc., are great, but like compuserve and AOL of yesteryear. Ning has the customization features people/groups want.

2. Ning is ?. Fully customizable. API.

Wikinomics - Don Tapscott

2006-11-08T12:36:00.000-08:00

Wikinomics (Don's new book now available for pre-order on Amazon. Also authored Paradigm Shift).

The Enterprise 2.0 -- The Economics of Collaboration

The cost of collaboration has historically been very high.

Industrial Age > Extended Enterprise > Business Webs > Mass Collaboration

Moving from physical resource-based production to knowledge-based production.

California schools are considering moving all texts to wiki to save money.

Zopa.com: peer lending marketplace.

Cambrian House - crowd-sourced software. You think it, crowds rate/test it, crowds build it, ch sells it, you profit.

Chinese Motorcycle Industry is open source.

4. Ideagora - mass idea marketplaces. Goldcorp story - guy offered $500M to anyone who could find gold in his geographic data. They found $10B.

Sharing Science and the Science of Sharing: The Human Genome Project.

5. Open Platforms: Gmap, Amazon API, IntelliOne (Live Traffic Speeds calculated based on the movement of CDMA cellphones)

Pikspot Groups: UndoTV

6. The Plant Floor Goes Global - Boeing airplanes are created with mass collaboration

7. The Wiki Workplace: GeekSquad

The Enterprise 2.0 -- The Crisis of Leadership

Paradigm shifts involve dislocation, conflict, confusion, uncertainty. New paradigms are nearly always received with coolness, even mockery or hostility. Those with vested interests fight the change. The shift demands such a different view of things that established leaders are often last to be won over, if at all. Marilyn Ferguson (PPT)

Enterprise 2.0 Mashups

2006-11-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

Mark Benioff - SalesForce.com

Liked Jeff Bezos presentation. Move from the killer app to the killer platform.

Web 2.0 empowers the consumer. Also empowers Enterprise.

bikramfinder: yoga maps, schedules & studio reviews. Input your zipcode and get back a gmap of yogo studios. Click one and get info of the studio, including review. The bubble containing infomration is not stored on google. In this example, the data is coming from salesforce.com. They are using services on the network to get the data.

salesforce.com example: logged in. Looks like Zephyr. Upper right: App Exchange let's him choose from available mashups. iRows Spreadsheet was chosen. Embedded the app in App Exchange. Now, he can view his opportunities by whatever. Spreadsheet and chart appear directly in the app.

Skype mashup in salesforce.com: opportunities link up to the Skype mashup. Shows who is on Skype right now.

DreamTeam (PM) mashup in salesforce: see appexchange.com. "AppExchange Business Incubator". Salesforce is moving into the Siebele's vacated building. This guy is just a little arrogant.

Cyworld

2006-11-08T11:32:00.000-08:00

Hyun-Oh Yoo

Korea's Cyworld (like Myspace + Flikr + YouTube + iTunes + IM + etc.)
* 20MM subscribers (40% of the country)
* 96% of 20-29 year olds use Cyworld regularly.
* 100,000 video uploads daily
* Started in 1999
* Clean safe friendly
* Multimedia blogging
* Easy to use
* Digital enhancements are available for purchase
* Participatory Rich
* Multi-platform (PC, Mobile)
* Expanding to overseas market
** China
** Japan
** Thailand
** US
** Europe
** SE Asia

It's All About the Infrastructure

2006-11-08T11:21:00.000-08:00

Microsoft's Debra Chrapaty

The Internet Cloud is the server, the data centers and the network infrastructure.

* Scale
* Reach
* Deployment Speed and Agility
* Technology Evolution
* Server Density (power)
* Green power

"Give yourself time. 18 months."

This by itself would be a good reason to go with aws.

Power is a huge issue. It's on everyone's radar screen. [Alternative power, green design and construction, coolers, reflective paint.]

The data center is the cloud.

State of the Internet, Part 3

2006-11-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

Mary Meeker

The World's Information is Getting Organized and Monetized.

The market value of the top 5 is 46% higher than the 3/00 market peak.

Slides are on the Morgan Stanley site.

The Top 5 are Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Yahoo! Japan, and Amazon.

It is tough to succeed: 2% of the companies created about 100% of the wealth.

Usage: Yahoo! is recording 418MM unique monthly visitors with 24% yoy page view growth.

Customer Acquisition:
Online ads account for 8% of total ads now; 13% in 5 yrs.

Personalization: Amzn recommendations.

Comm: Skype is growing at 20%. Skype would be #3 if it were considered a telecommunications provider.

Video: 60% of Internet traffic is estimated to be unmonetized video traffic (P2P). Copyrights and infrastructure are the challenges but big money is to be made here.

Local: Google "long tail".

Mobile: 17% of global users have broadband. Only 8% are 3G users. Next 5 years 3G will grow to a 25% penetration (mobile broadband).

UGC - user generated content - wiki, my space, etc.

China/India/Russia - will continue to make impressive TMT gains.

By 2010, China will surpass US in numbers of users.

Broadband: 50% of US homes will have broadband by 2010.

3G will enter sweet spot this year or next (i.e., 25 to 30%).

Video Monetization:

Just as audio went from P2P to Apple for pay, video will follow same model.

Search ads have grown from 4% to 42% in last 5 years.

Search is the #1 customer acquisition tool.

More shifting of ads to online.

eBay listings compared to classified ads has moved from 1:35 to 9:1!

Online video momentum building and building...

Slide 22 details video events of the last year.

Yahoo's THE 9 - best online video presentation and editing.

Search Pets Dogs for dog on bongos. Search nike tiger for Tiger Woods video.

Think "Enter Sweepstakes".

Monetizing Audio:
Apple iPod: $140MM to 16B in three years.

Slide 31: compare Google to YouTube monetization.

Slide 32: note the number of traditional brick and mortar.

Watch where the younger generation goes.

Atoms and Bits - Robert B. Carter of FedEx

2006-11-08T10:04:00.000-08:00

Robert B. Carter - is executive vice president and chief information officer for FedEx Corporation. In his role as CIO, he is responsible for the corporation's key applications and technology infrastructure. FedEx applications, advanced networks, and data centers provide around-the-clock support for the information-intensive transportation, logistics, and business-related product offerings of FedEx Corporation.

Disconnected world - ability to supply demand.

Atoms: how we move stuff. Trains and airplanes. High speed long reach networks.

Youtube video - ant farm - FedEx nighttime traffic.

Bits: How we move information. Telegraph to the mobile phone. Virtual world that ties together the moving of the atoms by the bits.

Velocity + Visibility: access to new marketplaces and how they work. Two networks working together: a physical network and a virtual network.

When supply cannot meet demand, you have a starving village next to rotting crops.

"A sw rev will change the way soc 's business is conducted, and it will change the intel landscape." David H. Gel...

ACCESS is the revolution
Access to
* information
* goods

Access to information and access to physical things have increased asymptotically in the last 100 years.

Perpetual cycle of access:
incr access -> higher personal sat > business expansiion > natl econ growth > higher access > ...

Access is changing marketplaces.

R. D. Liang - "We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing."

Net Neutrality Debate

2006-11-08T09:50:00.000-08:00

Vinton G. Cerf , Robert Pepper

Mostly a discussion about why the network should remain open and not regulated.

Interview with Bruce Chizen - Adobe

2006-11-08T09:25:00.000-08:00

Bruce: Adobe has always been a peripheral player on the Web. They haven't been a piece of the heart and soul. The Macromedia purchase is an attempt to address this. Flash, Dreamweaver, video capabilities of the Flash player.

Bruce: Flash on Mobile is huge.

[PDF is a pain on the Mobile.]

Bruce says they are able to charge for the Flash player and Acrobat Reader on the Mobile because there is so much SWF and PDF on the Web. [Arrogant attitude].

Reader and Player are otherwise free because they charge for the authoring tools.

The challenge is to be open but not so open that they lose their commercial business.

Tim: As direct editing capabilities become built in, how will Adobe's business be affected?
Bruce: They will continue to push the envelope. Web 2.0 is an example of what the web can be.

Tim: ActionScript is based on JavaScript.
Bruce: Yes. Adobe handed over the VM to Mozilla recently. This is the biggest, most important open source development to date. Mozilla Foundation is ecstatic.

Tim: More open source announcements coming?
Bruce: Yes. We are announcing today a product for web management and print. [At least, that's what I think he said.]

Tim: Microsoft in competition.
Bruce: Flattered. Google keeps distracting them.

Apollo is a run time client that will render PDF, SWF, HTML, etc., inside or outside a browser, while connected (or not) to the Internet. Includes access to the desktop and network.

Web-Scale Computing - Jeff Bezos at Web2Summit

2006-11-08T09:01:00.000-08:00

Amazon.com has 61 MM customers, $10B in sales.

Amazon Web Services

Developer-centered business: 200,000 registered developers. 10 different web services. More than just books.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) -- storage in the cloud. See SmugMug success story.

Excitement is coming from ease of creating successful products. Removing the undifferentiated heavy lifting (muck).

Customers
* Smugmug
* Powerset
* Microsoft
* Second Life
* Xerox Global Services (S3, ...)

Elastic model: use as much as you want for as short or as long as you want. Inexpensive.

Services in brief:

Amazon E-Commerce Service
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Beta)
Amazon Historical Pricing
Amazon Mechanical Turk (Beta)
Amazon Simple Storage Service
Amazon Simple Queue Service
Alexa Web Services

** Alexa Site Thumbnail

Developer-facing business will someday have a positive financial impact.

EC2: server instances that are easy to use, self service, inexpensive, rampable up and/or down.

"Fulfillment by Amazon" - ship something to them and they will stow it and distribute on demand with subsequent instructions.

Alexa has a powerful web crawler. Developers can access.

Tim O'Reilly asks about the coming data center wars. Jeff explains the biggest cost is the lack of utilization. Servers are roughly used on 17% of the time. Yet, the overhead must run 24x7 (air conditioning, etc.).

Jeff says Amazon will treat developers as customers.

Web 2.0 and SOA

2006-11-07T19:55:00.000-08:00

Rod Smith, Strategy Vice President, IBM/Internet Emerging Technology

Carol Jones, IBM Software Group, WPLC IBM Fellow (and e-goddess)

Intro: Everything! Web 2.0 is one of the most talked about shifts in technology today, but beyond the hype, how can companies leverage the latest Web 2.0 innovations in order to do real business?

IBM will share its view on how Web 2.0 techniques such as rich internet applications, mash-ups, and social computing tools are creating compelling and agile end user experiences when built on top of the powerful engine of a Service-Oriented Architecture solution.

In the workshop, we'll demonstrate how Web 2.0 technologies, when combined with a Service-Oriented Architecture, can take loosely coupled services and assemble them as ‘enterprise mashups’ to quickly and dynamically deliver business value.

Come learn more about how Web 2.0 and SOA are being combined to help your customers and partners bring real business value to their organizations, ecosystems, and value nets.

Ian Davis covers this session here.

Jack Ma Interview at Web 2.0 Summit

2006-11-07T19:38:00.000-08:00

Guardian Unlimited covers the Jack Ma, the China Internet king, interview at the Web 2.0 Summit.

Breaking Free: Working with Real Time Data, Online, Offline, and Outside the Browser

2006-11-07T19:15:00.000-08:00

Christophe Coenraets, Senior Technical Evangelist, Adobe

Web 2.0 has spawned a wide array of exciting online experiences. But the limits of the browser are already stifling innovation. Imagine the blending of documents, applications and media in one unified experience Imagine being able to take applications offline and break out of the browser. Imagine making better decisions, faster through the use of real time data. See how you can streamline complex business processes, and deliver intuitive, engaging experiences. Join us for an exploration of what lies ahead for Web 2.0.

Covered here by Read/WriteWeb. At a high level, Christophe thinks the following things are still missing from the Web:

* Expressiveness
* Performance
* Rich Media - not just passive consumption like YouTube, but interactive
* Real Time - a rich flow of data between the server and the client
* Desktop/Offline - apps that run outside the browser

Read about Apollo.

Launchpad

2006-11-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

Intel announced here earlier today that it is collaborating with several software companies on the launch of SuiteTwo, a business Internet suite. In part, the news release reads, "Representing a fundamental shift toward open, flexible and participatory computing models, SuiteTwo is a foundation for communication that drives internal collaboration and external, high-engagement marketing. It includes advanced Web applications that incorporate blogging, RSS, search and Wiki capabilities into a single, fully integrated suite that operates on PC-based hardware. All services are integrated with a single sign-on and rich user interface. Future releases of SuiteTwo will include podcasting, business networking, mobility and other features."

There are 13 companies launching here today. (250 applied). Each gets 5 minutes.

In the Chair (code web2.0) - music learning made fun and easy. Feedback. Video game. Record and share. Compose and share. For a teacher, perhaps. Mashup between content and tools. Real Guitar Hero.

Instructables - user contributed learning. Tutorials on how to do/build things. Step-by-step colloraboration. 2000 projects. Launching "Collaboration" today. 30,000 people on the site.

Klostu - means "close to". Boardtracker - forum search 300,000,000 people. Boardscape. Communication between boards is difficult. Klostu helps. Same profile facilitates sign up for other boards. Turns lurkers to members with one click. Lives inside the boards.

Sharpcast - easiest way to manage all your islands of data. Need a bridge for online vs. offline across devices. Backup. Do things once from any platform. Sharpcast photos was demo'd earlier in the year. Today, he is able to handle all/many? file types. Demo'd PC and Mac. Pushed from Mac. Open with PC and edited online with Zoho. Apparently, he did not have to download/upload the file with changes made by Zoho. Deleted a file from his phone; it should have deleted the file from the web but the app crashed.

Stikkit - yellow sticky notes that think. Rael Dornfest. Note figures out it's a contact you just typed in.

Turn - ads and search, keywords. Automated online advertising. World's first online targeting ad network. No manual targeting or keywords required. Delivers simplicity, relevancy, ... Lead generation. Upload your ads into Turn. Turn analyzes ad and publisher then ranks ads based on bid price and probability (of display?). 1000 advertisers, 5mm ads, 21mm monthly unique users. A revolution in online ads.

Sphere - (a blog search engine) Today, a new direction. Tony Conrad. Has a plug in for relevant content. Something new. First mainstream media partner: Marketwatch. Related Blogs and Articles search tool.

Omnidrive - storage aggregator. Windows, Mac, Mobile, and Web. Less than 1 Mb. Windows looks like a flash drive. Web looks like windows. Code: web2con for demo.

Adify - Ad network creator. Washington Post is networking blogs now using this to generate revenue from the advertising.

3B - 3D rendering of collections of URLs, including sites.

oDesk - hiring system. $18 per hour for a russion ajax programmer. Has tracking system to check on productivity.

Venyo - validates blog sources.

Timebridge - personal scheduling system, "one-step scheduling". Works with all systems. Outlook plugin. Timebridge opens up alongside the email while I'm emailing someone in another company. Allows multiple meeting time proposals.

The Mobile Discussion

2006-11-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

The Mobile Discussion
Om Malik, Senior Writer, Business 2.0
Daniel Appelquist, Senior Technology Strategist, Vodafone
Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Multimedia, Nokia

Mobile will be the biggest disruption.

Read about the Mobil 2.0 conference and Daniel's expectations of this session here.

Mobile is an unknown factor in the U.S.

Where does U.S. fit in? Where is the rest of the world?

Convergence and the Mobile Web.

The room is full.

Om: Opened.
Daniel (Vodaphone): Disruptive innovation. Opportunity, too. Daniel works in R&D. Enabling the Mobile Web and 3rd party innovation. Letting a 1000 flowers bloom. Letting innovators bring products to market thru V.

Youtube and Google is not on his radar. Interesting, though.

Downloaded apps to the phone bypassing traditional content distribution methods on the mobile platform. Mobile is at Web 1.0 now. Slow, operator controlled decks. Web went to openness. Thought then was web wanted to be AOL portal controlled. No one would want to enter URLs.

Best practices documented recently. Dot Mobi. Mobile OK.

Om: to Anssi of Nokia. Browser direction.

Anssi: Why here at Web 2.0? Web 2.0 is all about Mobile. Today, we only occaisionally visit the web via PC. The phone provides Web access from everywhere 24x7. Browser is only one way to access the Web. Open source browser is available at Nokia.

There is no Mobile Web. There is only one Web. Now, openly programmable Linux and Symbian systems, anything can be done. Anssi showed his N93 - wireless LAN, CDMA, etc.

Skype is in the audience.

Web 2.0 is about mobility.

Om: complaining about mobile platform carrier restrictions.

Daniel: That is the model of the past -- it is going away.

Anssi: nods in agreement. Access fee is too expensive, still.

It is happening in Asia and Europe. It is not happening here because of monopolized attitudes of the carriers.

We will be buying devices for other things they do; the phone will come for free.

Daniel: On portals, T-Mobile took the portal and turned it into on Web launching tool. One Web Vision. Carrier decks are just jumping off points, and a place for search and discovery.

Om: Content is coming from the carriers. Om thinks the carriers are still to concerned with generating revenue.

Daniel: From an R&D POV, they are not interested in monetization.

Business Models: Google is making a ton of money by providing Web 2.0 technologies for free.

dot Mobi - need to look at w3c initiative. 60 guidelines (http://www.mobiforum.org/mobiforum/mobi.php?cat=HCI) that help make web sites look good on both PCs and mobile devices. (Use of CSS, xHTML, etc.). W3C Best Practices.

Daniel: look at PinPPL.com - looks good in Blackberry and PC. Uses CSS to achieve. You must consider mobile when you build the site to begin with. dot Mobi is just an enabler. Label indicates it will work on your device.

* Consider screen size
* Tighter integration
* Access to phone features
* ShoZu: phone pics to Flickr instantly

Om: What kind of clients we should expect down the road?

Anssi: Processing power and graphics acceleration. 3d and sound. Server software. Video server.
Q&A:

How to make money? Advertising. Ease of doing business. Subscriptions. Event-based content.

Location-aware search: restaurants, things to do.

3rd party Google Maps download for the phone helped Daniel navigate in Europe.

Network speed - EVDO
Monitor size - external?

3G - video phone

Daniel Next generation: hi bw low latency, deployable. Really complex. WIFI

Anssi: LTE - long term evo. 100 Mbps? Voice calls drove speed. WIFI. WiMax if implemented like cellular. Nokia is implementing all emerging radio tech.

Daniel: w3c running a workshop in Bangalore.

Video: high res. Scalar vector graphics. Why nothing like external monitors and [wireless, Bluetooth] keyboards? The speakers didn't have much to say about in this area.

SMBx: The Revolution of the SMB Application Marketplace

2006-11-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

Danny Kolke, President and CEO, Etelos, Inc.

Moderator: Tony Perkins, Creator & Editor in chief, AlwaysOn
Michael Arrington, Editor, TechCrunch
Dave Ferguson, Engineering Director, Google
Raju Vegesna, Evangelist, Zoho

It’s the small business that drives the growth of our economy and with millions of businesses up for grabs, how will Web 2.0 play out for this marketplace? Who has what it takes to succeed? What is it going to take? What are Microsoft and Google really up to and what opportunities still exist? Who will win the battle for Web 2.0 and the small and mid-size business marketplace? Are we ready for a major software revolution or is this all hype?

The panelists will give real answers about the future of SMB Applications and who really owns the electronic solutions available to SMBs today.

Small and Medium Business market is very big, and disputed. Highly fragmented. Entreprenuers.

The Business Problem
* Customer Savvy Meets Small business - small bank vs. large bank, for example.
* Small Business Market is dramatically Underserved - need low cost solutions
* Custom Solutions are Expensive
* SaaS - Software as a Service

Yet Another Problem
* AJAX - cleans toilets
* SaaS - kids do this
* MashUp - is a car wreck
* Web 2.0 - nobody knows what it is

A Confusing Ecosystem

Small Business needs all the benefits of Software as a Service.

* Choice in Apps
* Easy of Customization
* Flexible Hosting

Revolution?
The power of the web is yet to hit the average business.

Tony Perkins - AlwaysOn
Richard McAniff - MS Office

Seems like the time is right for big businesses to help their small business customers (BNSF -> Shippers, Truckers).

50% of the market is not on the Web. Adoption will come not because of the technology but to solve the pain.

Safety of your data on the Web.

Adobe guy: create PDF on-line has seen great increase in use.
Google guy: Google Web Toolkit. Trying to be as open as possible. Data is owned by user; trying as much as possible to let customers move that data as possible.
Zoho guy [Zoho QuickRead View Office files available online directly using Zoho QuickRead (formats supported: doc, xls, ppt, odt, rtf, sxw, sxc, sxi, pps)]...
MS guy: Web 2.0 is teaching us that things need to be kept simple. SMBs are risk averse. They want security but they don't want to get locked in.

Summary so far: 50% of business are not on the web. SaaS allows targeting of these companies. Power of innovation. They are not using CRM, email marketing, etc. Etelos wrote an programming language in plain English to provide open source, on-demand Web 2.0 applications on the hosting environment that you choose. Etelos appears to be an open-sources marketplace (?).

Next wave is to put providers and users together.

Key metrics to evaluate SaaS are needed to help the SMB determine value.

Emerging technologies are adopted as trusted sources promote/teach about them.

Adobe guy: Software companies need to help. SaaS model has helped with adoption. Consider Hotmail, Gmail, etc.

SMB guy: likes utility services, esp. simplicity and portability. CRM - Sales Force.

Doctors don't reply to email because it's free advice. Body shop.

See Restaurant Manager Beta at Etelos.
Features of the Restaurant Manager:
* Website Management Tols
* Email Coupons
* Online Ordering and Reservations
* Customizable contact management
* Automated follow-up Email campaigns
* Automated email reports and task lists
* Easily manage calling lists, prospect lists, campaign lists and more
* Search and list contacts by first name last name company and more
* Viewed date-sorted contact calling lists
* Import and export contacts in CSV format
* Productivity management tools (integrated tasks, appointments, call logs, resources)
* Sales reporting
* Collaboration Tools
* Built on Etelos, where you can customize anything!

Consider MySQL - 5,000,000 developers strong -> now 15,000 customers. Giving away your application and allowing an ecosystem to grow up around it -- does it make sense?

The value comes from the collaboration rather than the online spreadsheet (or whatever application).

Whose Data Is It?

2006-11-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

Marc Hedlund, Chief Product Officer, Wesabe
Stewart Butterfield, General Manager, Flickr, Yahoo! Inc.
Christine Herron, Director, Omidyar Network

Many Web 2.0 applications collect their users' data -- bookmarks, photos, music tastes, and much more -- and make that data more useful by aggregating it, sharing it, and remixing it. What does this approach mean for the users who are creating that data? What obligations do these businesses have to protect the people who are contributing of themselves to build these applications? We'll look at different approaches a Web 2.0 company can take, and how they have worked for businesses in the past; and we'll explore what promises a business can make to help their users feel and be more comfortable sharing their data online.

Ian Davis covers this session here.

Enterprise 2.0

2006-11-07T08:41:00.000-08:00

Panel: Paul Kedrosky, Ross Mayfield (Social Text), Kim Polese

Byline: As business software begins to learn from Web 2.0, a new class of enterprise software services is emerging: Enterprise 2.0. We will discuss how Enterprise 2.0 services can and should work, and how such software can leverage the behavior of users to become smarter and more useful the more people use it.

Paul recently blogged about Enterprise 2.0. (Note host: http://slideshare.net/)

Unknown: People are finding new ways to subvert IT.

Ross Mayfield (first wiki - SocialText): easy to use collaboration. A new level of simplicity. New ways to contribute with tools that don't get in the way. "Enda Macafee" wrote about this. Slates: tagging, search. 1 PM announcement with Intel, NewsGator, SocialText.

Mike McDermott (CEO of ?): A place for enterprises, typically small, to profile themselves. Dogwalkers, for example.

Jeff Nolan (teqlo: users should be able to assemble functional web applications without having to know how to program).

Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.

* Harness collective intelligence (data)
* The Web is the database
* Sneaking thru port 80 (HTTP)
* Instrument people's behavior

Wiki in the enterprise. At first, it's really shocking. Privacy issue.

Aggregated and anonymized data

Adoption

Writely, Google spreadsheets, sneaking in under the cover of night (thru port 80), subverting IT. Project managers can get things done with tools like these. Consumer tools and open source software -- easy to adopt.

The role of IT. Adoption of a wiki cannot be controlled by IT. Grassroots efforts do this. If IT doesn't supply it, I'll supply it myself (attitude).

Will these emerging technologies be blocked by the enterprise?

Where is my payroll data? My healthcare data?

Ask the audience: Who is doing the participatory model well? Who does this hurt/disrupt (e.g., D&B)?

* CCBN (as LiveMeeting becomes trusted)
* Systems integrators (custom app builders)
** These guys can help the evo by sharing their domain knowledge and promoting the use of these tools. Similar to the move from C-Band to small dish satellite.
* IBM's 37,000 consultants at risk

The really interesting thing is Enterprise 2.0 is like a drive-by shooting that kills off old-tech players.

Who is doing it well?
* Jigsaw
* Microsoft - Excel services
* Sharepoint
* Amazon
* Zibra
* Open Source, in general
* Google
* Users

Web 2.0 Summit Home Page

2006-11-07T07:46:00.000-08:00

This is my personal space for thoughts on this year's Web 2.0 Summit.

Related sites:
* http://www.web2con.com/
* http://wiki.oreillynet.com/wiki/web2conference2006/

Tags:
* WEB2SUMMIT
* WEB2SUMMIT06