Le Web 3
Just back from day one of Le Web 3. Overall a bit of a dissapointment, little to no crowd interaction and it appears to have gone from a gathering of like minded people to just an audience facing whatever corporate interest is on stage at the time. I'm all for corporate interests I just didn't expect to travel to France to listen to Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft tell us where they think the web is going.
Judging by their mutal efforts to date I'd argue where they are going ends in a cul de suc of the same old stuff you've seen already.
Stating the obvious is also a bit of a no-no. One VC had a light bulb moment this afternoon when he stated that e-commerce is going to be big this Christmas. Since even my Luddite parents have taken to shopping online he might be onto something. VCs and PR folks are crawling over the show as to be expected. Blank stares meet your gaze when you mention anything technical, though someone who won't be named did answer with the word metadata when a VC asked him what his product did. Both I and the VC started laughing. Fortunately for me I'm not looking for any money nor do I require any relating with the public to be done so I can unleash the wit when it's appropriate. On the other hand I've seen some tortured smiles and cavernous silences issued from those folks who need both VC money and PR. Likewise for that pitch which was so terrible you just want to rush the person out of the room before they put themselves out of business.
Interesting dig from the Headshift guys when discussing MS SharePoint, they described it as rampaging through organisations like the flu. Of course they and the folks from SocialText had the answer to all your business process and collaborative woes. No vision of where the so called concept of Enterprise 2.0 is going that I heard, but they had the answer...for a price.
I wish people would stop doing that, anytime I see someone call anything x.0 it tells me they don't have a clue what they're speaking about. Car 2.0. Lamp 2.0, Keys 2.0. It's all rubbish no matter what bookseller Tim O'Reilly says.
