Web 2.0 Expo 2007

OK, today is the official Day 1 of the Expo. Wifi has been hard to connect. When I looked around there was a least 30 people staring at their screens. I think they were doing the same thing – trying to connect to the net.

There were 3 sessions slots before the keynote in the morning. I chose the following:

• Media 2.0: How Web 2.0 is Transforming Traditional Media – a panel discussion by 3 panelists from Technorati, VFlyer and TechMeme. The sound wasn’t so good, so most of the conversation was lost behind the mike. But the gist was that Old Media is going to die and Community-generated media 2.0 is going to take over. I really couldn’t see the logic. Quality journalism and information still has value, and people are willing to pay for it.
• Profit from the Long Tail by Tapping the Invisible Crowd – Jack Jia from Baynote.com spoke, and I thought is the best among the three. At least he dished out interesting information about capturing the long tail and the wisdom of the crowd. I think I’ll try to read his book recommendations.
• Going Beyond Mobile Web Browsing with Web Run-Time – Nokia presented this one – basically aiming its S60 operating system’s new feature of mobile widgets at the developers. Quite interesting, but platform is limited. Not many mobile phones will support this. The problem with mobile industry is that everyone wants to be a Microsoft, at the end, none is.

I was a little disappointed at the Keynote. Jeff Bezos was basically pitching Amazon’s Web Services. I thought he would come in and saying something visionary about the future of the Web. I suppose money is still everything in the Internet world.

The panel discussion on Built to Last or Built to Sell: Is There A Difference? was quite good. John Battelle the host did a good job by asking some ‘tough’ questions. I like Joe Krauss’s answers. At least I think he was honest, but I’m sure he’s rich by now after JotSpot.com was acquired by Google.

Adobe Apollo. Whizbang! Wow, I was blown away. The demo was really impressive. I think most of the audience, at least those who have not seen it, must have their jaw dangling. I must download the alpha and try it. It’s bring web technology and development to the desktop. I am impressed.

LaunchPad was boring, except for Spock, which is a people search engine.  The demo was cool.

The expo floor opened at 4:30pm.  There was a rush of people for t-shirts and goodies.  Lots of buzz.  Very happening.

I will report more on the booths tomorrow when I get a better look at them.  So far, I have already got a couple companies I think I would want to contact after the show…