Today we had that Mashup event at the Sun campus with Mike Arrington. There were somewhere between 100 and 200 people there; I had fun and learned things.
Mr. Schwartz showed up to say hello and take a couple of questions; that’s an advantage of doing events right here on our own campus.
Flowering trees on the Sun campus just outside where we did the Mashup event.
To start with, there were a few shows of hands: At least two thirds of the audience had been attracted by Mike via TechCrunch. A huge majority, 80% or more, were doing startups. When asked if they’d describe themselves as “Web 2.0”, only a few of the startups’ hands stayed up. Nobody would admit to being a VC, although it developed that there was at least one in the room, but a handful acknowledged being from larger operators: Google, Yahoo!, and so on. I said “You know, it’s OK to work for a big company.”
Mike and I had a public conversation about Web 2.0 and Venture Capital for a little under an hour, with lots of smart interjections from the people who weren’t sitting on the stage. I say “conversation” rather than “debate” because we agreed at least half the time. One amusing area of contrast (I’m not sure it constitutes disagreement actually) was on the real meaning of “Web 2.0”; my vision centered on Contribution Culture and the central role of the human voice. Mike had a more technology-focused vision, focusing on the rise of a Web Operating System. Remember: I’m the technologist, he’s the entrepreneur. Hmmm.
After the show, a bunch of people wanted to talk to me and I heard about some cool stuff; then I glanced at the other end of the room and there was a line-up stretching across it; people waiting their turn, one by one, to pitch Mike. He’s at the center of the hurricane, no doubt about it.
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: leslie (Mar 20 2007, at 09:44)
What do you think of the term "recombinant web"?
Together with "contribution culture" I think it expresses how the modern web is often more than just HCI -- human-computer interaction, but also HHI, HCI, and even CCI.
I imagine here humans and machines as two vertices in some interaction graph, with positive self-loops on both ends of that spectrum.
Avi Bryant and I are organizing a mashup enabler meetup within the Web Expo next month -- would you like to join us? I'll send you an email soon.
~L
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From: Robert Park (Mar 20 2007, at 11:16)
That's a funny dichotomy. I've always personally viewed the Web 2.0 change as the difference between a static read-only newspaper and a collaborative, interactive newspaper. Wish I had been able to attend, sounded like fun.
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From: Laurent (Mar 20 2007, at 20:44)
I like the term webag, but web aggregation.
This is web 3.0 for me.
It's also a contraction from "we bag".
Web 1.0 was precise search: Google
Web 2.0 was anarchy: YouTube
Web 3.0 is WeBag: recall, being able to count all user contributed content and aggregate it in meaningful ways.
For example, user reviews (e.g. Summize.com).
RedFin does that for real-estate: combining data sources to solve a new need.
Delexa does it by maching Delicious and Alexa.
They are all WeBags.
Best wishes. Being at the event was fun.
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From: Jake (Mar 24 2007, at 08:45)
Why does Web 2.0 have to have meaning? I know everyone wants a shared meaning in order to communicate more effectively, but is the effort that goes into a definition of Web 2.0 really worth it?
I'd rather spend time trying to define which parts of the emerging web system should be a public utility that will create value for all society (like roads) versus which will be for-profit areas that should be maximized by capitalism.
Or something.
I think too many human CPU cycles are being spent on a trivial matter...
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