Looking Back on The Web 2.0 Summit
I've let the heady fumes of sponsored parties disperse, and on consideration, the Web 2.0 Summit was a solidly done event: great speakers, well executed, generally very interesting. But after saying that, I still was surprised at the lack of surprises. Aside from the Microsoft Research Labs Photosynth demo, the software being debuted was relatively tame or something we had seen before. (Or, in a few cases, totally odd, like the 3D virtual reality thing from www.3b.net, which made me wonder about the process they used for the Launchpad.)
As I said, the conference organizers did a great job, especially John Battelle, whose steady hand kept things going. But at the same time, it's really a very formal and traditional conference. There is not even a smidge of unconference in it anywhere. Very high quality, but very old school.
Here's what really gets me, and makes me wonder what is going on, globally. Where are the huge new ideas? Where is a new take on memetracking, or social news, or advertising? Where is the gut slap from being exposed to something totally new? Where's the genius outlining a whole new insight to what's happening? Where's the next organizing principle on a par with tags, something that can form a basis for totally new approaches to building apps?
Not even any new buzzwords.
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