Web 2.0 Expo recap
Doug Pfeffer
Developer : Boston
topics: Process, Mobile, Programming Languages, Technology Industry, and Software
http://tbg.cm/gQX43u
I went to the Web 2.0 Expo a few weeks ago. It was a four day long internet stuff event. I learned a few things and I’d like to share them with you all. I’d also like Rick to authorize my expense report for some drinks, and he’s holding out on me for this blog post. So let’s get to it!
First thing: the content covered here was very, very broad. I guess I should have expected it given the name, but I was sort of surprised how much stuff that we take for granted here at The Barbarian Group is even worth having panels about. There was a lot of “Facebook is going to be huge!”, and intros to various concepts that seemed established enough that no one needed to hear it. Maybe this was more of a biz person thing than a maker thing, or maybe I just went to the wrong panels. It seemed to be targeted more at people getting into “web 2.0” than people already in Web 8.0 or wherever the hell we are now.
I thought the keynotes were the best. Tim O’Reilly interviewed/chatted with Jonathan Miller, “Chief Digital Officer, and Chairman and CEO, Digital Media Group for News Corporation”. Between the two of them they really know some stuff about some stuff.
Miller raised some really interesting points about the internet industry ecology. Tim asked him to expound a little bit on turn arounds, as Jonathan has a history of being a turn around guy. Jonathan says (rough transcript):
“Turnarounds and the internet are really interesting, because we don’t have a great history of them. That’s a problem for us as an industry. Because unless we can build sustaining enterprises all we do is move from one thing to the next, and that tends not to be a great system. It doesn’t work for investors, it doesn’t work for buyers, it doesn’t work for people trying to keep jobs. You just have this churn. So I think one of the things we need to do as an industry is figure out how to sustain companies. It’s not a good industry when any moment in time there’s only two or three genuinely healthy companies. That’s not a good thing for all of us.”
Of course, his definition of “healthy” is more heavy duty than a lot of other peopls’. There are tons of healthy smaller start ups out there that are sustaining themselves (see 37signals’ Profitable and Proud series), but I suppose he’s talking about Newscorp-ish, big-industry companies. He continues:
“It’s not a long list especially after you consider how many great people have done so many great things, and how so much capital has been invested, how much effort there’s been. That’s not a great outcome. In the media industry there’s been large media companies that have sustained for a hundred years. We tend to just jump to the new new thing.”
It’s hard not to think about how these large media companies, and a lot of other large companies, might be on their way out, but he doesn’t really touch on that.
Also of note as was the work that Leila Chirayath Janah, CEO of Samasource is doing.
They’re basically an implementation of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, but their focus on the 3rd world and the impact they’re having there was awesome. From the site: “a social business that connects over 550 women, youth, and refugees living in poverty to microwork — small, computer-based tasks that build skills and generate life-changing income”.
They’re basically an implementation of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, but their focus on the 3rd world and the impact they’re having there was awesome. From the site: “a social business that connects over 550 women, youth, and refugees living in poverty to microwork — small, computer-based tasks that build skills and generate life-changing income”.
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