Notes and belly-button lint from Web 2.0 Expo

This year’s theme is The Power of Less.

Introduction to the keynotes: “It’s a tough time out there and we are glad you’re with us to talk about the web.”

“Our sponsors, _____, ______, _______. Give them love.”

“Recycle your programs. We didn’t print enough for everyone attending. If you’re not going to be here tomorrow, leave your program for someone who will be.”

Tim O’Reilly: “2.0 was never a version number. It’s what comes after the dot-com bust. Survivors are harnessing collective intelligence. What’s next?”

The web is like a baby. It’s trying to make sense of the world. It puts things in its mouth to try them out. Is the web baby getting smarter? Tim showed a ‘94 search engine: 250 pages chosen from among a web of 5,000 pages. Then Google four years later: 25 million pages. Google now indexes a trillion pages. And search is getting smarter. The baby is growing up quickly.

“Meaning doesn’t have to be formalized.” Tim, crediting John Batelle, says Web 2.0 + World = Web Squared.

This “less” business. C’mon, now. The electric power grid is 100 years old. A sensor can sniff out what sort of fridge is running in your kitchen, but the grid remains dumb. Also, look at something like USASpending.gov. It’s lightweight; the technology is borrowed from a stand-alone site. Finally, an app like Patients Like Me creates value in and of itself.

Organizations need to create more value than they capture.

John Maeda gave an advertisement for Rhode Island School of Design. I didn’t like his book on Simplicity. I don’t like him using an event like this for outright business development. Boring.

That said, I enjoyed a few parts of his talk: taxi receipts being sold alongside candy bars in the vending machines at LaGuardia in NYC. Also, I clock that tells you “It’s about a quarter til five.”

My togetherLearn mate Clark Quinn and I prowled the Expo floor, stopping here to learn more about Blue Kiwi, a social media platform that’s taking Europe by storm.