Web 2.0 Expo Impressions

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One of the perks for tech-savvy people like me studying here at Berkeley is the proximity to some of the most exciting conferences of the industry. When Amir, our VP Academics, arranged the DMEC club members free pass for the Web 2.0 Expo that happens this week in San Francisco, I immediately took this opportunity and went to hear and see what’s new in the web 2.0 arena. Mr. Elop mentioned that Microsoft is going for a converged approach and will offer free, ad-supported lightweight versions to complement the more rich standalone products. He also mentioned that Microsoft is aiming to become the most interoperable company in the world. My favorite quote: "I love my Kindle, I wish we (MS) had such a device…"

The Keynotes

There were quite a few interesting keynotes opening the conference. They can be divided into 3 main categories:

• Speakers who specifically addressed the developers on site, such as Mark Carges from eBay who pitched developers to use their platform (and specifically PayPal’s) and Michael Abbott from Palm who encouraged the community to start developing applications for Palm’s new WebOS which is running on the new Palm Pre (if this device actually delivers what the demos promise, it is one awesome gadget)
• Speakers who discussed the impact of web 2.0 on art, design and society, such as Amanda Koster from SalaamGarage and John Maeda, president of the Rhod Island School of Design (RISD), who talked about simplicity and about creative leadership.

• Speakers who talked about the future of web 2.0 – first Tim O’Reilly that made a point about  the power of less and argued that we should try and apply Moore’s law to problems outside of the tech industry (make things smaller, not bigger). He also talked about Web Squared – the co-impact the web and the real world have on each other. He then interviewed Stephen Elop, head of the Business Division in Microsoft and the guy responsible for products such as Office and SharePoint. They had a very interesting discussion about the impact the cloud will have on traditional software licensing models. Mr. Elop explained that Microsoft is taking a converged approach and will offer free, ad-supported light-weight versions of office to complement the richer stand-alone desktop applications. He also mentioned that Microsoft intends to be the most interoperable company on the planet. My favorite quote, however, was "I love my Kindle…I wish we (MS) had such a device"

The Expo

Many companies presented in the main expo hall, and unfortunately I couldn’t even begin going through all of them. I did stop by at some that raised my personal interest, such as:

ProtoShare – Developed a prototyping tool for rapid creating of UI mock-ups. This intrigued me since I was working on a similar tool in the past and I was really impressed with their product (well, the demo, at least). They basically allow non-developers (let’s say, Product Managers) to create a fully navigational web-application that can be the basis of further discussion and can easily changed as necessary. Once the prototype is ready, it can be handed to the development team who now have a clear picture of the product (rather than communicating via word files, static ppts etc.). Another use case would be for startups in the initial fund raising phase who want to give their potential investor a feel of the final product.

g.ho.st – A fully functional online desktop environment, based on Adobe Flash that offers a desktop that goes with you everywhere. While the company has been around for sometime, they greatly improved performance, added lots of applications that are now available on their environment and increased the storage offered (5GB for files + 3GB for mails, and extra storage for every friend you bring to the service). It seems to me that Microsoft Live Mesh will pose a big threat on these guys, however, the company also bears a social vision as its R&D is done by joint teams of Israeli and Palestinian developers and is a living proof of the potential that technology has to bridge over differences and conflicts.

ooVoo – An interesting video chat application that allows up to 6 different people to conduct video calls online. Although it seems like nothing new initially, after talking to the people in the booth it seems as if they have quite a few ideas regarding monetization (such as SMBs) and they also provide an extensive API for developers to build online video-heavy applications.

Meanwhile, in the real world (just outside the expo)…