This year’s Web 2.0 conference was full of Hackers, Twitterers, Bloggers, and…wait, I should clarify that these are not symptoms of people with a low immune system but actually describes how people use the world wide web in their daily lives. Those who had exhibits and demonstrations at the conference included IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, eBay, Adobe Systems, Amazon, Facebook, Meetup.com, and several other companies. I was introduced to Topix.net, which is a great source for news and syndicated forums, which creates a community for people to discuss, edit, and share news that matter most to them. Tam Tamy is also a neat company that creates Enterprise social networks and communities (I almost sound like a commercial). This is something that I would like to get familiar with and hopefully incorporate it in some future projects.
So what was the best part about Web 2.0? Well, I can tell you that it certainly wasn’t the opening Keynote. I thought that Tim O’Reilly did an informative opening speech about “What is Web 2.0?”. Does it really exist? Is the term over used for the wrong context? I found a great article that he wrote, which goes into this more detail
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
John Maeda from Rhode Island School of Design also livened up the evening with his presentation on “Open Source Administration”. He is the founding voice for “simplicity in the digital age” and talks about combining art and design. After his speech, the rest of the Keynotes lost the interest of the audience. Palm is suppose to come out with a great product, but I couldn’t find myself interested enough to sit through it. Instead, I went to the reception and met a lot of great people. Afterwards, I headed to Madrone to the Ignite Party. I even found myself in one of the pictures posted on the Web 2.0 website
Well, it’s hard to tell it is me but I am in the background talking to some friends from Mexico City that I met at the conference.
I missed the Keynotes throughout the rest of the week but I did manage to attend a sponsored presentation or 2. I was looking forward to hearing about cloud computing since I have seen the term get brought up in the Business Times and Salesforce.com website. It is basically moving everything that is normally done on a server out into the internet. Google and Salesforce.com are good examples of keeping information out on the world wide web instead of using a software. Wikipedia describes it a whole lot better than I can.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing
There is a lot of skepticism of moving everything to cloud computing. Somebody at the conference brought up a point that moving everything into the web may save energy but it also creates insecurity. What if something happened at Salesforce.com that wouldn’t allow you to get access to all of your contacts and information? What if another company hosting your information decides to change their fee unexepectantly? I am kind of neutral to the idea. It is one of those things that may take awhile for people to feel comfortable doing. I use Salesforce every day and they are incorporating more ways of helping companies keep better track of contracts, activities and prospects.
Next year, I hope to attend the conference again. I would love to attend some sessions on Adobe products and learn some new tools. Thanks to Valerie Trost from Flash I and the lively class of ITEC 830, I have turned from technophobe to born again geek.
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