Tim O'Reilly (the founder of O'Reilly Media - creator of this conference and of concepts like "the net is the computer" and "Web2.0" had a keynote talk about The Internet as a platform. Again it is all about DATA. According to him we still have to invent for the world to come, not for the world as it is now. I fully agree :-)
Also the future is in how to add value to other websites / parties (like Facebook / Twitter) - and not to try controlling everything yourself (like Google or Apple) Microsoft is moving more and more in the sharing directions by the way.
Next was Jeff Pierce of IBM research. he is working on a mobile email triage system. If you get up in the morning and you check your mail on your iphone - usually you decide at that moment to read a message, delete it or save it for later. (Actually I sometimes click on message to get rid of the notification that it is unread - your just the other way round forward a read message to myself so that I don't forget to take action on it). Usage of mail on an iPhone is different then on a iMac - so IBM came up with a triage system. With this system you can immediately decide what to do with which message and even import it in tasks. Unfortunately IBM owns Lotus Notes - so they are working out the system to work with LN. And as we all that that LN really stinks I guess we have to wait for other parties to come up with a similar system for Apple...
When I thought about all the startups I saw this week I had to think of the concept of Steve Blank: A startup is in search of a (new) business model, is agile, is taking risk while large established corporations are looking for the best execution of existing business models and focused on efficiency, processes and to avoid risk. This is one of the reasons why so little innovation is coming out of these large corporations.
I definitely need a new digital camera - it is almost impossible to take pix without flash...
We invited our friend Richard Sommers for dinner at AME (japanese fusion). He is very insightful on what is going on in the valley and a truly great friend above all :-))
Loopt was one of the first to come up with an Ipad app. Alok Deshpande showed us this and the user interface design it is brilliant in its simplicity and usefulness. It's really the next level for Yelp, Foursquare and such. Let's see how they react. In the mean time download the app (it's free)
We had lunch with our old friend Brad Inman who is now the owner of (yet) an other start up vook. Vooks are Video Books for the iPhone / iPad. They try to enrich existing content with propriety video content. It was interesting to hear his learnings and the way the are experimenting to find the best concept and business model.
The day started with a demo of the parrot drone helicopter. This is a quadricopter with can be controlled with an iphone or even better ipad. It has 2 build in cameras for augmented reality purposes. It was very cool to see. Wondering how much it will cost and how long it will take other to use the sensors of the ipad for remote controlling.
Next to the conference there is the WEB 2.0 expo on which we saw many new interesting start ups. Lot's of them based on social data and mashing up data in on or the other way.
A panel discussion between the development managers of the leading browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome) made me realize how extremely difficult the talks about standardization are at the moment - and that these discussions really are dragging the innovation of the web. This together with backwards compatibility issues for the hundreds of millions of users of IE6 - makes it very difficult to move ahead. No wonder that the iPad or Android Apps are so popular: you have no legacy there (yet). Maybe an other reason for the idea that browsing as we know it could be dead in a couple of years...
Next to services in the cloud - we see all kinds of (social) data sharing popping up. Slideshare is moving into video, scribd into presentations. Both are using HTML-5 by the way. The whole flash discussion is over I guess: HTML-5 a clear winner.
We saw some nice start up presentations: askyourtargetgroupmarket.com engleasy.com pearltrees.com rhomobile.com strings.com stupeflix.com
Search on Youtube for funny cats and your will find some of the most viewed clips ever. What is it with cats and the Internet? Is there a secret conspiracy going on in which Cats aim for world domination through the Internet?
In the keynotes there was a consensus that we have to aim to more and more "lightweight" social feedback tools. The instant success of Facebook "like-button" is an example. It has a very low level of interuption.
Ge Wang (Smule / Stanford) told us the story behind Smule and the reason of their many successes on the iPhone - and now iPad with magic Piano. A nice insight of him is that the laptop is a tool, while the iPad is an extension of your self, far more personal.
It seems that every year more and more people attend - I guess there are about 4 .000 people here from over the whole globe gathered to discuss new ideas and trends in Internet. What strikes me first is that everybody has an iphone, 80% a macbook and almost half of the attendees an iPad (!).
Mobile computing being one of the main topics of course. (Raven Zachary had a nice view on this: the nineties was about desktop computing, the last decade about laptop computing and now starting in 2010 we really set of with mobile computing.) Actually Apple is one of the first mobile device companies. We quickly learn in conversations that consensus is that work is laptop, home and travel is iPad.
There's been a lot of discussion lately about the future of browsing (more about that later this week) and I am convinced that the days of naturalness of using a browser to access data are gone. We are using more and more apps already and other forms to unlock data will emerge.
Christian Crumlish made a case for allowing users to play with the information / website we give them. The curation of datafeeds of twitter / facebook / foursquare etc. So more then a retweet or a facebook liking.
Next to that the computer gives us a sort of "mask" to hide our identity in the world. We can takethat idea a step further a give people a whole new identity? :-)
It was also the day we heard of the petabyte age ( that is a 1000 terrabyte). When will we have a petabyte drive at home? 3 years?
This conference is all about the Web as a platform with social and geo analysis, real time. We will hear a lot more about that the coming days.
Microsoft Dallas labs showed some very interesting concepts like odata which immediately gave me all kinds of new business ideas.
One of our first meetings here was at the Information Technology Center at Berkeley University. We are especially interested in the use of visualization to enhance comprehension and analysis of structured and unstructured information. More and more technics are becoming available and it was good to have some learnings about what is happening in their labs and what to expect of these technologies in the near future.
After Berkeley we took the "long way home" and spend some time in Muir Wood Park and contemplated about things to come walking along thousand year old, 100 meter tall trees.
Did I mention that Clint Eastwood was mayor of Carmel at one time back in the eighties? LOL
Anyway Carmel is also famous for The Mission of San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo. This is one of the prettiest churches in California. The day we visited a holy communion celebration was going on and although some liked that very much, other were not so happy ;-)
Still a little bit groggy of the time difference we drove to Frisco along Highway 1: a beautiful road along the pacific coast with big waves, lot's of birds and other animals - thousands of motor bikes and small coastal villages. The famous golf courses of Pebble Beach are all in immaculate condition and the houses seem to be twice as big as in Carmel. Lush green vegetation - it is a sort of paradise and I can understand why people pay a lot to be able to live (and play) here.
For budget reasons we fly BA - so a pretty long flight via London and leave on a Saturday (why do we have to include two Saturdays for a better air fare rate is still a big question for me...). But then again it will give us some time to adjust to the timedifference and to see something pretty on our way to Frisco.
First stop after a smooth flight (thx to BA) is Carmel by the Sea. This famous "art village" is actually very nice indeed. The only thing you DON'T want to see is the "ART" they try to sell on every corner. It is super kitsch.
Marijn and I are on our way to San Francisco for our yearly "Internet update". To learn what's hot, hear and see the new trends and meet old friends. This year it seems that the expo is bigger then ever - but I wonder is the label 2.0 still valid? Shouldn't we be talking about Web squared or an other label?
I guess in hundred years this event will still be 2.0 just because of its reputation - it's really awesome!
No it isn't the crappy Apple iPad case. It's an ordinairy acrylic art plate stand!
It's fully adjustable, foldable can take your iPad portriat or landscape style - will allow for connection / power cable and costs a mere...$5... :-)
I love it!
Emerce (a Dutch Internet magazine / website) published a list of the 25th highest rated Dutch professionals in e-commerce - and Lo and Behold! - I am in it :-)
Thanks to all the readers of Emerce and quite an honor to be in this prestigious list and in excellent company of people who are the real professionals.
Michael Neeves from MCN is testing the Kawasaki Z1000 (my bike!) this summer. Some remarks he makes do ring a bell (limited fuel range / stupid fuell meter) - others I cannot agree with like the tires or suspension. But let's see what his verdict is at the end of the summer.
Jag kunde inte låta bli och jag hämtade ändå Pippi av DVD med Inger Nilsson som Pippi... (Den ursprungliga dubbning på nederländska var verkligen mycket roligt - (Annika och Tommy: Oh, Pippi dat mag je niet - O Pippi det får du inte!)
Pippi var en den mina favoriter i Astrid Lindgrens värld när jag växte upp, jag hade nog Pippis äventyrslust i mig, men också inslag av den något ängsliga och präktiga Tommy.
Nu kan jag äntligen läsa böcker i den ursprungliga texten. Jag började i bok ett: "Känner du Pippi Långstrump?" - med bilder av Ingrid Nyman.
Det är mycket lätt (och röligt)!
Everywhere in Germany you will find "Eis salons". I wonder what they sell in the winter. But anyway: the Germans really crave Ice cream and usually it is the busiest place in town.
The Teutoburgerwald is also famous because of the defeat of the Roman commander Publius Quintilius Varus (above his mask) against the Germanic tribesmen of the Cheruscian leader Arminius in 9 CE. Three legions were annihilated and Germania remained independent from Roman rule ever since. No wonder the Germans like to remember this!
There were so many coins found, that the people of Bramsche called the site Goldacker (field of gold).
Funny fact: a little town called Varseveld (= Varus' field) can be found in eastern Holland.
We had a nice motor trip to the Teutoburger forrest near Osnabruck, Germany. It's a great hilly quiet area - super for serious motor riding. So no wonder we saw hundreds of motor bikes :-)
Thanks to the always wonderful host Peter Paul of Ogilvy Amsterdam I was invited to an exclusive Sushi workshop at Yamazoto (Okura Amsterdam). One star chef Akira Oshima shared his secrets of how to make the perfect Sushi - and behold! - it really worked. They did not just looked great -they tasted awesome too :-)
Oh - and the secret is: take the best ingredients, your sharpest knife and take your time...
Had a great evening presenting to students of Tilburg University about entrepreneurship - something I should know about by now, but realize every time again that it is probably something that you never really learn or understand but just have to do and enjoy. Nice talk by Niels Peteri of Quooker about the long, long way his company / family had to take to finally achieve the fabulous success the have now.
I will be presenting at the Road to Quote conference in Tilburg this evening. Question is of course: would you want to be in the top-500 of Quote anyway? Not sure yet what I will present...
After a meeting today - I forgot my (3G) iPhone somewhere in the south of Holland. Unlike Gray Powell - who lost his (4G) one last week, I don't think it will have any other consequence then not to be able to be reached by phone for a couple of days... Thx to mobileme by the way I could track and trace the whereabouts of my phone by the minute: cute!
