Web2.0 Expo, Day 1
I caught a few sessions on Day 1 of Web 2.0 Expo. I will
capture the gist of them later - once I have compiled all my notes.
However, I wanted to write about Tim O'Reilly's keynote address. It was
an electrifying talk - making me glad that I took the time to attend.
Unfortunately, he finished 1-hour's worth of material in 20 minutes. I
sure hope they make his slides available online later.
Tim started by examining the deep trends in the industry:
Internet as a platform
Harnessing colletive intelligence - applications become
better as more people use them
Data as the "Intel Inside"
Software is being delivered as a Service
He then looked at the Opportunities that lie ahead:
Enterprises - it is all about letting users into the back
office. Providing real time user facing services based on data provided
by customers. One of the examples he gave here was Dell's Ideastorm.
Cloud Computing - this is the next frontier. Amazon
pioneered here. Google seems to be following suit with their App
Engine. Another interesting player here is EngineYard.
Mobile phones - It is no longer about computers, but a wide
variety of devices. He mentioned Microsoft Live Mesh (which they
announced yesterday). In fact, he said, mobile phones will drive the
paradigm shift from the "participation age" to the "ambient age".
He challenged the audience to think of audacious goals. He gave two
examples here:
Microsoft's vision in the 70s to "Have a PC on
every desk and in every home" (which was ridiculed by DEC's Ken Olsen)
Google's vision in the late 90s to make a
business out of search by indexing all of the world's data
He asked, "Are we done yet?" and the answer was a resounding "No"
He concluded by reading a moving poem,
"The Man Watching" by Rainier Maria Rilke.
Wednesday Apr 23, 2008
