Now I’m a diehard Safari user with an almost equal level of love for Firefox so I’m not sure how much room I have in my already crowded mental space for yet another browser. I’m giving Flock a thorough once-over only due to its strong philosophical bindings to the whole Web 2.0 thang.

I’ll post some more impressions later.

The view from our hotel

Originally uploaded by Rob N Shell.

This isn’t really Web 2.0 related but I wanted to give everyone a little taste of the wonderful experience Jeff and I are having here in San Francisco. This was taken yesterday morning.

Data on the Move continued…

In my last post (well, the one before the picture) I had just started to talk about the a workshop I attended called “Data on Move” hosted by AT&T. There were four panelists who all talked about the concept of data-mining on the internet and how this is the future of the web. What they were all getting at was the idea of using user data to better predict what the the user is trying to do and thus serve the user better. One of the panelists, Usami Fayed, the “Chief Data Officer” of Yahoo said that the web is “interactive medium on a massive scale.” He then went on to say that most companies only pay “lip service” to the interactive part and still consider the web to be a one-way “publishing” medium.

Launchpad

The last workshop I attended was probably my favorite of the conference. Thirteen companies had six minutes each to launch or announce their new Web 2.0 products along with a demo. It was crazy! I’ve never heard such fast talking and seen screens move by so quickly in my life. All of the demos were fantastic but the real standouts in my opinion were Zimbra, RealTravel, Flock, and Rollyo. Zimbra is an online, Ajax-powered office collaboration suite. As the demonstrator moved through the demo, showing contact info that popped up when a person was rolled over or calendar info that appeared when a date was rolled over, the audience (including me) oohed and aahed in appreciation. It was easily the most popular demo of the workshop. I won’t go through all of the demo but here is a link that covers this workshop pretty well.

Welcoming Seminar and Dinner

So finally, after all the workshops were over, the entire 850 or so attendees of the conference gathered in the main ballroom for a welcoming message by the conference chairs, John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly. Then we were treated to an interesting conversation with Barry Diller of IAC/InterActiveCorp and previously Paramount, Fox, and the QVC Channel who among other things explained the purchase of AskJeeves. He also demonstrated that he didn’t like being called a mogul (when John Battelle suggested he was one) whether it referred to internet or media (as in “internet mogul”). Following that were several more speakers the most fascinating of whom was Bran Ferren of Applied Minds (and previously with Disney as one of the original Imagineers). He basically talked on a higher plane of existence than about 90% of the audience (including me) but was fascinating nevertheless.

Dinner (hosted by MSN Search) came next and along with it a conversation on stage with Ray Ozzie, Gary Flake and Yusuf Mehdi of Microsoft. Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle kept trying to get them to admit that Microsoft was about ready to acquire AOL but they pulled the old “no comment” trick.

Me and the guy from Microsoft

Later in the evening, during Google’s cocktail reception, I had an opportunity to talk to Gary Flake who is new to Microsoft and was previously with Yahoo and Overture. He’s a fascinating guy and very smart (Ph.D smart). We agreed to disagree on the issue of open source and he admitted that he is a “fan” of Red Hat (or at least the software). I left the him wishing that Micheal Tiemann had been by my side. I would have paid to listen to that conversation.

So yesterday was a pretty full day. Today was not quite as hectic but alot happened. I’ll do a wrap-up for it tomorrow. Stay tuned…

This billboard was placed in the lobby of the hotel just as you go up the stairs to the conference. Cute.

Ajax Workshop

My first workshop yesterday morning was “Applications 2.0: Ajax and Beyond (The Business Case)” hosted by Peter Merholz and Jesse James Garrett of Adaptive Path. It started with a quick explanation that Ajax is an approach and not a technology and that it is based on Javascript. Garrett pointed out that Javascript is not a “toy language” anymore but a mature and stable tool for web development.

I was struck by by the comments of Joe Chung from Allurent who was one of the panelists. He attempted to answer the question of why anyone should be doing Web 2.0. He said that “Brand matters” and pointed out the example of a generic box of Loratidine from CVS that sells for $5.99 and a box of Claritin that sells for $9.99. Of course, the Claritin sells better because of its strong brand, slick packaging and easy to understand effects. Chung made the argument that your web applications’ ease-of-use strengthen your brand. He boiled it down to “Better user experience = better brand equity.”

Search workshop

Following that, I attended an overcrowded workshop on search that was plagued by technical glitches. I left after listening to Ask Jeeves, Wink, and Indeed pitching their products. I was standing up the whole time trying to keep my elbow from knocking over the woman next to me and feeling a bit put upon for being sold to by a bunch of search engines. In the case of Ask Jeeves, I couldn’t even sense the Web 2.0 connection. I left after that in search of some much needed fresh air. Despite all that, I should mention that Wink showed some impressive technologies. I’ll talk a bit more about them when I describe the Launch Pad event I attended later in the afternoon.

Legalities of Blogging Workshop

The last workshop I went to before lunch ended up being a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It was entitled “Strategic Blogging: Avoiding Death by Opinion.” Hosted by the law firm of Fenwick & West LLP, it featured a discussion of the legal issues faced by companies who allow and/or encourage their employees to blog. It also covered blogging being done outside the work environment but impacting the workplace. The hosts discussed topics like harrassment and discrimination and what options employers have for dealing with errant employee blogs. It was interesting to listen to as I think about the open nature of Red Hat.

Data on the Move

After lunch, I went to a workshop hosted by AT&T that featured a discussion…

Live update: Terry Semel just finished a fascinating discussion with John Battelle. Next up is a a discussion with Tim O’Reilly, Mitchell Baker from the Mozilla Foundation and Jonathan Schwartz from Sun. It’s entitled “Can Open Source Stay Open?” I’m going to pay attention to this one and take some notes as I listen.

Running narrative of open source discussion…

Schwartz is claiming that the source code has no value in and of itself. It’s value is the services it provides… O’Reilly and Schwartz are butting heads on whether Sun is a “hardware” company or not. Schwartz is incomprehensibly claiming that it is not?!? He claims that people buy the hardware because they love OpenSolaris. Much laughter from the audience… Schwartz is talking up grid computing. O’Reilly agrees that it is the “model of the future…” Baker is talking about the value of “free” in terms of Firefox. She is talking about the effect of “user generated data” in terms of the way people can develop on and change Firefox… O’Reilly is asking how Greasemonkey has changed the “user experience…” Baker agrees that Greasemonkey is significant but claims that the full power of Greasemonkey will not be widely adapted by the general public because most people are still confused at the difference between the browser, the internet and the search box… O’Reilly is querying Schwartz about Sun’s deal with Google…Schwartz is again claiming that the power of open source is not in the code but in the community… (that’s a little better)… So he is saying that the announcement was really important just because Google and Sun are working together… He said that’s a big deal… Google will be imbedded into Open Office… Baker made the point that a well-distributed “lousy” product does noone any good. This was in response to something Schwartz said, I think… He is arguing that Sun and Google have the power of distribution… O’Reilly is asking Baker about the old browser wars and what is different now… Baker is saying that they spend a lot of time thinking about what features to put into Firefox that won’t be incompatible with the experience IE users get. She is not sure if Microsoft is thinking along those lines. O’Reilly is optimistic that they finally are… Hmmm…. O’Reilly asked Schwartz point-blank if he is being truly transparent on his blog or if he sometimes try to mislead or provoke… Schwartz said that yes, he sometimes does like to provoke but he is also aware that Sun has a huge legal department that he would like to keep happy… He admits that he has on occasion given said legal department coronaries… He said his blog entries are not previewed before publishing… Baker is talking about Google and browser integration… Audience questions and answers now… Baker is saying that Mozilla took a lot of heat for not complying with ActiveX but that in hindsight it was a good move… She said that Mozilla will not blindly copy whatever IE is doing… Schwartz claims that there is no point in having a web-based Ajax office suite… Ajax is great for blog editing but not for office suites… Schwartz said that “everything” Sun does will be open source so they can get the product out to as many people as possible so they can create the communities they value… Schwartz is saying that the beginning of the Web was a model where people had to pay for IP before it was delivered to them. The model now with Web 2.0 is to deliver the product first and then figure out a way to monetize it… O’Reilly is asking if the new ways of making money in this new world are accessible to all companies… He is directing this at Schwartz… Schwartz is saying that content will always be valuable and that there will always be money to be made… Mitchell is assuming that there will be a shake-up in the major players in the next 5-10 years…. Schwartz is claiming that Mozilla is a for-profit corporation and that’s a good thing… Baker takes issue… And now it’s over. Whew!

Back later…

Okay, sorry for that break in the action. I’m actually going to stop now (as Mary Meeker from Morgan Stanley comes to the stage) and post. I’ll be back later with the rest of yesterday and some thoughts on today.

I’ve been to two other workshops this morning and so far it’s been absolutely crazy. The one I’m in now is fairly low in attendance but the other two I’d been two were packed. The second one which was about search was also plagued by tech glitches. I’ll blog later on tonight about all the workshops and what I’ve learned.

Just a note to everyone back at Red Hat. We’ve been talking alot about RSS lately so I wanted to point out the “Entries RSS” link on the right-hand side of this page. Use it if you would like to subscribe to my blog and read it in your favorite RSS reader.

My co-worker, Jeff Mackanic and I just got into San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Conference that starts tomorrow and runs through Friday, October 7.

I’m using this occasion to start my own personal blog about Web 2.0. For the first few days it’ll just be a report on the goings on at the conference with a little bit of analysis. Most of it will be directed at all the folks back at Red Hat in North Carolina so they can live vicariously through me and Jeff. I’m hoping that I can maintain this even after the conference is over as Web 2.0 is a concept that will be with us for a long time to come.

Since I’ve usually got my nose buried in code these days, I’ve not written narrative in a long time, so I apologize in advance for the the stilted language and bad grammar that will surely abound. Hopefully my writing will get smoother and a bit more elegant as the creative juices start to flow and I find my rhythm once again.

So our trip from North Carolina to San Francisco was fairly uneventful. The only thing of note was that Jeff bumped into and said hello to Ray Ozzie while we were checking in to the hotel. Ray Ozzie is the creator of Lotus Notes, the founder of Groove Networks and the “incoming” CTO of a little company out in Redmond called Microsoft. Ahem.

That’s it for now. Much, much more tomorrow as the conference gets into full swing.