EightBlack.

My poor MacBook Air is struggling under the weight of video content from yesterday. That along with my jet-lag and I’m running behind.

Anyway, coming shortly is the Keynote from Day One with Tim O’Reilly (founder of the Web 2.0 Conference Series) and an interview with Charlene Li (from Forrester) and Max Levchin from PayPal fortune and now the driving force behind Slide.

I thought Max’s session was great. Especially the part about him failing miserably at the first 4 start-ups (before he hit pay dirt with PayPal) and ruining his credit history. I doubt though he’ll need anyone else’s money anytime soon though.

Standby for the videos. It will be up on Blip.tv soon and posted here shortly.

Coming later today will be Marc Andreessen with John Battelle, Mitchell Brown from Mozilla and Jonathan Zittrain from Oxford University.

I was hoping this session would erupt into a violent slanging match. After all, when you put very smart dudes from Faccebook, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut and Six Apart all together, disagreement is sure to take place.

But nothing. They were actually quite civil to each other. I blame Justin Smith - the panel moderator. His questions were far too polite. If I was ever allowed to moderate one of these panels, I’d get all the panelists semi-drunk at lunch and then promptly insult them right from the start. But that’s just me.

Anyway.

Most of us identify with with the 2 big social networking players - Facebook and MySpace.

Bebo is an interesting story (the name stands for Blog Early, Blog Often). It started out back in January 2005 by a husband and wife team, was “re-launched” in July of that year and just over 3 years later, ie March 2008, was sold to AOL for US$850 million.

Orkut is Google’s foray into the social networking pond. They’ve clearly got some very bright people working on it, but intelligence is one thing, traction and scale is another. It was name after the Google employee who created it, Orkut Büyükkökten.

According to Wikipedia, Orkut is the most visited site in Brazil. And the second most visited site in India. Apparently, Orkut was originally intended for the US market, but it obviously didn’t work out that way. Maybe Orkut the creator didn’t read the internal memo correctly when he built it. Maybe he’d had too many Turkish coffees that day.

Like a lot of the great things that come out of Google, Orkut built Orkut in his 20% time.

Interestingly enough, Orkut’s previous company, Affinity Engines, filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that Orkut the app contained 9 identical bugs from Affinity’s social app - InCircle.

Google’s finance department then got involved, cut what was probably a big enough check, and Affinity went away. Or something like that.

Ok, back to the session.

The questions still unanswered for me are these. Is there room for all these social networking sites? Who will be here in 3 years time and who will have bitten the digital dust? How does Corporate (you insert the country here) make money with social networking, What’s Google’s long term play with social networking? Because you can’t tell me that they’ll be happy with Orkut and being the number one and two site in places like Brazil and India.

The session went for 50 minutes but I’ve only posted 20 minutes here.

I saw a useful application of Twitter yesterday during the very first session of Web 2.0 Expo.

Rob Hayes and Jeff Clavier, 2 well regarded Venture Capitalists, ran a rather lengthy (3hr) workshop on Financing and Growing Your Web 2.0 Start-Up.

For the very first session out of the gate, the attendance was impressive (easily 300+ people).

To promote questions, Jeff and Rob had set up their own Twitter account and anyone in the audience who wanted to ask a question, simply sent them a “tweet”. They had one of their laptops plugged into the projectors and the entire group could see the questions come up in real time. Which was actually quite cool. And more importantly, useful. Because you could ensure that the same questions weren’t asked twice.

I have an admission to make though. I probably arrived 10 minutes into the session and missed the whole “just send us a “tweet”" thing. By the end of the session, I still for the life of me, couldn’t figure out how to send a question. Sure, I know how to “follow” someone on Twitter but the whole “messaging” between each other still has me stumped.

Maybe its the jetlag. Or the bottle of wine we drank the night before.

Maybe Twitter isn’t designed for people over 40. Maybe it’s just me.

Never mind. Most of the audience got it. And it was probably the best use application of technology, that was 100% spot on, for the time and place.

This interview actually happened by accident. A lot of the good ones normally do.

Day One at Web 2.0 is always a little quiet as the Expo doesn’t actually start until Wednesday. Today - there are just 2 workshops. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. I still think about 1000 people show up though.

I sat through Jeff Clavier and Rob Hayes presentation on “Starting Up: Strategies for Financing and Growing Your Web 2.0 Start-up”.

I’ve actually seen this before - but there’s always something to learn.

Anyway, at the end of the session, I was waiting in line to ask Rob if he’d mind me interviewing him for the blog. The guy who spoke with Rob before me was Christian Sepulveda. I was intrigued by his story and the effort he went to attend.

Christian is from Santiago in Chile. And the Chilean government, in their wisdom, sponsored 14 budding entrepreneurs and sent them to Web 2.0. Bravo is all I say.

Christian also managed to convince his government to back his own start up - Ubiqq, to the tune of US$80,000. More Bravo.

The Web 2.0 Expo attracts a lot of “headline” acts. But it also attracts quiet achievers like Christian, who make a herculean effort to attend. And I don’t care where on earth you come from, entrepreneurs are all the same - they have that glimmer in the eye and that strong desire to succeed.

It was clearly evident in Christian’s eyes from the very first moment we spoke.

Clearly, Web 2.0 is attracting more and more people from around the world. And that’s a good thing. Now if we could only get more VC’s to countries like Asia and Latin America, that would be even better.

Simple really. To put our finger on the pulse. One of the hardest things to do in this age of “the bigger web” is to actually keep up with it.

Sure, those of us who regard ourselves as being “tech savvy” will be able to talk with some degree of alacrity about the benefits of Twitter and blogging and the importance of being on sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

But secretly, many of us hope and prey that this fad will soon pass and our kids will assume control of the environment that we are battling to keep up with. Or at least I am.

I was lucky enough to attend the inaugural Web 2.0 event last year. This year promises to be bigger and better still.

Keynotes from industry titans such as Max Levchin (founder, Slide) - anyone with a Facebook account will know of Slides work, internet pioneer Marc Andreessen (founder of Ning, but better known for his wider contribution to the web with the creation of Netscape), Mitchell Baker (Chairman of the Mozilla Foundation, the real browser) -sorry to all you Mac Zealots, Jonathan Schwartz (CEO - Sun Microsystems and corporate blogger extraordinaire), Matt Cutts from Google, Ari Balogh (CTO of Yahoo!) and other industry heavyweights.

For those of you who have never been to Moscone West, the convention centre in San Francisco and the home of Web 2.0 for the rest of this week, here are some highlights.

1. The Moscone Centre (North, South and West) contains 2 million square feet of building area, with over 700,000 square feet of exhibit area. For those Aussies and in particular, folks from Melbourne, the Melbourne Entertainment Centre (Jeffs Shed) is less than half this size.

2. There are 106 meeting rooms

3. Over the course of the event, it is expected that twice the amount of media will attend this year as last and anyones guess of 10,000 plus people will pass through the event.

O’Reilly and TechWeb - the events co-producers have gone to great lengths to promote collaboration at the 2008 event. From The South Park Crawl, to the Booth Crawl at the actual Expo itself, to the Web2Open event (where anyone with a Web 2.0 Expo badge can share knowledge and join in open discussions etc), to the Birds Of A Feather Session (BoF) and the famed Launch Pad Sessions.

There’s no reason for any attendee to be shy - no matter how many un-resolved issues they have.

Web 2.0 provides the opportunity to plug-in to the Web. To gauge it’s pulse. And to connect with the very people who in the driving seat. Sure, 90% of the companies who are busily flogging their wares at the Expo itself and whose PR agencies are furiously pounding away at the media may not survive the next 12-months, the best thing is that there is still a level of belief and confidence in the web itself.

Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are all watching in the wings. There’s news this week from both Jerry Yang’s crew (earnings announcement Tues US time) and something’s brewing with Microsoft.

I often wondered why Google doesn’t just take the event sponsorship outright. After all, with their recent earnings announcement, they could afford any fee. Instead, Microsoft, IBM and Etelos are the ones who take centre stage in this area.

It promises to be an action packed week. And to me, this event is the highlight of the year (apart from the Web 2.0 Summit).

Stay tuned. Video posts will commence tomorrow. We’ve got some interesting folks lined up who have graciously accepted the invite to talk on camera.

See you in 24 hours…

One of the best things about being stuck in a plane for 14 hours is that it gives you time to think. And clean out your inbox.

I remember when Dave used to work with me, he would just cringe every time I went away. Too much time on my own, perhaps the odd glass of wine or 10 and a lack of oxygen gave me the impetus to write a gazillion emails and then fire them off to him when I reached a wi-fi connection at the other end.

He was always good natured about it. But I reckon he used to think “what a pain in the arse he is”.

You know those stories you hear where exciting things have happened to people when they’ve flown long haul - well, I don’t think they’re true. Jessica Alba has never been on any plane I’ve been on. I’ve never had anyone remotely gorgeous sit next to me (and if they did, they promptly moved), and nothing even anywhere near terrifying has happened, apart from getting into a fight with a drunk Russian on a Qantas flight from Singapore one day.

Oh, I nearly forgot.

There was a time when our son was only a baby and I had to take him to the bathroom to change his nappy. How on earth you’re supposed to perform a task like that in a toilet the size of a shoebox is beyond me. This one had one of those folding tables in it. How hard can it be - I thought.

So, I put him on the table, removed the nappy (this was only the 3rd nappy I had ever changed mind you) and then, much to my horror, a piece of poo fell out and started rolling around the place. The little prick started giggling. I started to panic and wave my arms. But no one could see. I then started yelling loudly. But no one came and my wife was in a coma, out cold, safely back in her seat.

So I pushed the button. The one you’re supposed to push if the toilet explodes or your kidneys get sucked down the toilet bowl after you flush it.

What else was I supposed to do? Touch it? Pick it up? No way.

All of a sudden, there were 3 flying mattresses knocking on the door, thinking something dreadful had happened. Which it had, if you asked me.

Son was still laughing, only because he was now naked from the waist down and he could see I was clearly in a state of panic. I opened the door and at the same time, screamed for assistance.

Suffice to say, I was not met with the most sympathetic of audiences. My wife to this day, still cannot believe it happened. It is probably one of the reasons that after 10 years of marriage she still uses her maiden name.

Anyway. Back to plane travel. And a lack of exciting things happening. Not once have I ever been on an action packed flight.

No massive clear air turbulence. No wing falling off. Nothing bursting into flames. No air marshall running down the aisle, gun drawn and yelling for assistance. And I’ve flown a shitload. Easily 3 million miles. No worries.

I suppose I should be grateful.

So this post was written at 32,000 feet. While I was sober. And semi-awake. With complete tranquility onboard.

I decided to put a link to all the great content I’ve collected over the past 12-months. Some of it has to do with the web. And some not.

Like the session with Seth late last year. Like this piece on how to be creative from Hugh McLeod.

Or like this manifesto written by the legendary Tom Peters.

We all suffer from information overload. The web has seen to that. And Google has made sure of it.

But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t share it. What a great reason to start a blog (if you don’t have one already).

We’re all sitting on great content - its on our hard drives. Time to set it free and then move on.

And as the saying goes - I’ve shown you mine. Now it’s time to show me yours.

I’ve got some cool interviews lined up next week as a part of our live coverage of the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo. I’ll be talking with some smart VC folks, someone from Twitter (because I want to have them explain why all the hysteria) and some very co-operative folks from Forrester.

That’s on top of all the sessions I’ll be blogging live from.

Stay tuned. The digital camera, YouTube and iMovie will hopefully all behave.

Promises to be another interesting week. And on top of all that, another cool visit to the Googleplex.

Ok, so call me old fashioned. Or technically challenged. My 7 year old son would agree on both counts.

One of the things I’m going to make a concerted effort to explore and understand at Web 2.0 is Twitter. No doubt, they’ll have plasma screens plastered all over the joint, showing “live” Twitter conversations.

And until last week, I was sort of trying to ignore it. Along with a hundred other things. Then I got this email from Dave Taylor, one smart dude and one of the founders of the highly successful Blogworld Expo event.

Anyway, much clearer now. Thanks Dave.

I’ve re-printed his email below. See if it makes sense to you…

The world of blogging proceeds apace, and there are even new
Fortune 500 corporations jumping into the blogging space in these first few
months of 2008, which either means that it’s a great validation of the
marketplace or a proof that things are getting a bit musty and unexciting.
Or maybe both.

Truth be told, some of the old guard in the blogosphere are finding that
it’s harder to stay focused on creating so-called long-tail content because
they’re being sidetracked by new microblogging systems out there, most
notably Twitter.

Blogging started out as personal diaries, and even now when I speak with
different organizations about blogging, someone invariably says “isn’t that
just personal diaries and stuff?” It’s not. Just for the record, blogs are
tools and more sites than you realize are now using a blog backend to manage
the publication of their information and pages.

Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to go back in time a decade and be one of the
very first bloggers out there? Unfortunately, I can’t turn back the dial on
your clock, but in a very similar way, Twitter is at its early stage and
jumping aboard now can reap rather surprising benefits.

The big difference is that Twitter is like blogging one sentence at a time.

No worries about being too long-winded but rather the challenge of conveying
interesting and fun concepts, engaging ideas in less than 140 characters.
Ten to fifty times a day. Or more!

Most people are using Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/ - to send out daily
updates on their personal life (remember, I told you it was like the early
days of blogging) but some of us are figuring out that it has far greater
potential to communicate with a core audience of engaged followers, of
people who pay attention to you and who want to know what you’re doing and
what’s new with your business.

My Twitter account is http://Twitter.com/DaveTaylor and if you look at my
page, you’ll see I have over 700 people who pay attention to what I’m
sending out. That means that when I write a blog post now, I promptly
twitter about the new page and instantly see dozens to hundreds of thought
and opinion leaders hop over to my blog and read it, add comments, and often
blog about my postings on their own weblogs.

Let me say that again: when I publish blog entries, I update the hundreds of
followers I have on Twitter and *instantly* see a spike in traffic.

There’s so much more to Twitter, which I’ll talk about in the next issue of
Blogsmart News, but for now, sign up and start following people who are in
your marketspace and start sending out short updates of your own to
demonstrate you’re an engaging member of your community!

See ya online. Both on Twitter and my blogs, of course!

Dave Taylor
——————————————————————–
Intuitive Systems: Online Strategies and Communications
——————————————————————–
Innovative Business Thinking @ http://www.intuitive.com/blog/

ps: Want to connect with me on a social network? Here’s how:

Facebook: http://profile.to/d1taylor
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/DaveTaylor
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/d1taylor
Digg: http://digg.com/users/d1taylor
Twitter: http://Twitter.com/DaveTaylor

Here’s the people on my video interview wish list for Web 2.0. I’ve actually found time this year to review the entire program and speaker line-up.

This is one seriously big gathering. Last year, around 10,000 people attended - with probably 4,000 to 5,000 at each of the keynotes.

In no particular order…

1. John Doerr - Kleiner
2. Jeff Clavier - SoftTech VC
3. Marc Andreessen - Ning
4. John Battelle - Federated Media
5. Mitchell Baker - Mozilla Foundation
6. Josh Bernoff - Forrester
7. Blaine Cook - Twitter (because I still don’t get it)
8. Rael Dornfest - Values of n, Inc
9. David Hornik - August Capital
10. George T. LeBrun - O’Reilly Insight Group
11. Max Levchin - Slide
12. Thor Muller - Get Satisfaction
13. Jeremiah Owyang - Forrester Research
14. Gina Poole - IBM Software Group
15. Naval Ravikant - Venturehacks (more soul searching around Twitter
16. Steve Souders - because last year I heard him talk when he was at Yahoo! and now he’s gone to the Dark Side (Google)
17. Jonathan Zittrain - Oxford University

Of course, if I happen to run into any of the the keynote speakers - I will attempt to ask something intelligent.

For me, at least, Web 2.0 is all about trying to ascertain what the pulse is. I’m keen to talk to the people on the ground about the whole Yahoo/Microsoft pissing match (and by the time Web 2.0 starts, the mud slinging should be well and truly underway).

Regardless, Yahoo! have nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. Microsoft’s modus operandi is all about appearing to play fair at the start and then when and if that fails, they simply come in with all guns blazing. I reckon the Yanks should have had Ballmer tackle Iraq. Mark my words, the USS Microsoft will get their way with Yahoo!

I’m also going to really try and see if I can get the whole Twitter thing. Probably not though - I’m too old.

Actually, the next post (which is an email excerpt) by Dave Taylor finally started to shed some light on the whole thing.

Stay tuned, I’ll be posting my questions to each of the people on the above list soon (in case I don’t get the chance to shove my video camera in their face).

It didn’t seem that long ago that I was with 10,000 of my closest web friends at the 2007 Web 2.0 Expo in San Franciso. Now we’re getting ready to head over again.

Someone was asking me today whether or not I got any value from attending the conferences and gigs I attend. Well, I’ll tell you this.

Last year, at Web 2.0, I sat in a presentation by Avinash Kaushik. I quickly discovered that Avinash is the Analytics Evangelist for Google and probably one of the world’s leading authorities on web analytics. After some research and digging around, I found this to be undeniably true.

Fast forward to today and we can say that we were incredibly lucky to meet Avinash last year. We’ve ended up working on some great stuff together. And I’ve had the privilege of visiting the Googleplex twice since then. He was instrumental in getting us as a company to focus very hard on web analytics.

So, are these conferences worth it? What do you think? Easy decision right? Er, not quite.

I don’t care what anyone says - the heartbeat of the web is on the West Coast of the US. Full stop. Period.

It makes sense then that people who have anything to do with the web - whether they be in the US, Europe, or Asia Pacific, should make as many “friends” and create as many relationships as possible in Silicon Valley.

For me, the Web 2.0 gigs are a good way of tapping into the Zeitgeist. I’m a bit more fortunate this year - because the organisers gave me a Media Pass - I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with it but I’ll figure it out on the plane ride over.

I truly do hope I see more Aussie companies there this year. Attending the event is clearly a worthwhile investment - even if it’s to give you some much needed “thinking time”.

Drop me a line if you’re going. Or deciding to go. We can complain about Bud Light together…

PS. One of the featured speakers is Marc Andreessen - one of the Valleys most articulate and experienced billionaires. Now that’s one guy I intend to shove my digital camera in front of…