Barry Woudenberg

Unfortunately my hosting went down today, so I haven’t been able to put any postings on this second day of the next web. Today was cool though, both issues I missed yesterday were well compensated today (dataportability and human side of web 2.0).

I’ll write my review of this second day later today, so keep an eye on this blog.

Scoble giving a presentation.

Here some interesting things I came across in the keynote presentations of this first day of the next web conference 2008.

Gil Penchina, CEO of Wikia

Gil talked about insane levels of control to his customers in relation to wikia, which enables community users for instance to change the front page of the website. He actually does something about which many people talk but few actually do it: letting the community take over control of the content of a website. Gil has an enormous amount of trust in his community and talks about his struggles to keep doing so. To me he is quite an inspiration to put so much faith in community and wisdom of crowd. A number of interesting points he made:

• Wikia entails 6000 websites of wikis. When Gil compares wikipedia to wikia in response to a question, he states: “a library (wikia) is bigger than an encyclopia (i.e wikipedia)”
• People are bassically good, and the good ones outnumber the bad ones;
• Wikia does not throw contests or hire people, everyone contributing to wikia must do so from an intrinsic will. He argues people with an extrinsic stimulus will not put as much effort into wikia as the ones who are intrinsically motivated;
• In response to wikia’s latest project: wikia search , a wiki-like approach on search engine functionality, Gil states in response to criticism about the project that wikia search wasn’t to be a finalized product but a start of project.

 Khris Loux

Khris Loux talked, among other things, about OpenSocial and other inititives that should fight content lock in. Interestingly, he mentioned not being able to join google’s opensocial project and contested it being ‘open’. In response to other developments like OpenID and dataportability, it was his thesis that these developments are not in the interest of  big corporations like facebook (because they rely on lock in). His strategy would be that if enough start ups and “big loosers” (like google) who have an interest in  fighting monopolists like facebook could be teamed up, a standard would de facto be created which cannot be ignored. In response to an audience question why any web 2.0 service would be willing to allow portability and give up lock is, Khris replies that it would stimulate companies to always be on step in front of the competition (i.e. portability stimulates innovation, because users would stay faithful because of excellent services and not lock in).
Khris even pointed to a ethical question regarding who owns content put on a website. Currently several major corporations claim IP on content placed on their network. I personally think, this is one of the biggest challenges of the internet the coming year, especially since more and more content is placed online.

to be continued..

Today was a big day for web 2.0 in Europe. The second edition of The Next Web Conference was held in Amsterdam, the first day that is. Unlike last year, this edition is a two day event. Last year was, at least to me, a big success with some cool speakers such as Dick Hardt. So this year the organizers had to beat last year’s succes. Judging by this first day, they’ve succeeded. Here’s briefly why:

1. great speakers;
2. cool presentations;
3. interesting new start ups that I did not know of (shame on me);
4. a great atmosphere!

Even though I’m not a thinking about a making my own web 2.0 start up , the vibe that’s at this event (and last year’s) causes me to reconsider. In 2007 the general mood about Europe in web 2.0 being virtually none existent (’where’s the european silicon valley?’, this year I’ve seen some impressive European 2.0 startups. Moreover, from what I could tell from the audience, a lot more people from europe are attending this event in comparison to last year’s. What were the coolest start ups? Here are my favorites:

1. Webnode: This is the start up which impressed the most. I actually might consider testing this one (the same counts for JT-kit even though that wasn’t presented in the start up rond). Webnode is a webplatform that allows you to easily create a website, with all kinds of widgets and allows you to easily add content (articles, polls, youtube movies, flickr photos etc.). And best of all, it looks visually appealing without a standard template feeling to it.

2. Zilok: like the moderator said rightly so: Why didn’t I think of that! Zilok is a peer2peer rental platform, meant for rental between individuals. They had the scoop that this week a Dutch version is opened.

Reflections on the first day

Here’s some reflections and general impressions on the first day of the next web 2008:

• to start with the most important one first: sandwiches were ok, but the amounts could have been better;
• like last year, the WIFI sucked big time;
• I’ve seen some cool presentations which have inspired me to do more with pictures and drawings in presentations. I Especially liked the presentations of Leah Curver (pownce) and someone from fav.or.it. I also liked Nova Spivack’s presentation even though it wasn’t that visual;
• There two things so far which I’ve greatly missed today: dataportability (which only Kevin Rose mentioned briefly) and the human/social side of web 2.0 (like Deborah Schulz did last year);
• We need more female speakers! Leah Curver was, like Deborah Schulz, a welcome variation to all the male speakers;
• Even though I’m not really interested in the whole venture capital story behind the whole web 2.0 start up scene, I have to admit that

Read more about the next web conference 2008 on the following websites:

• blog of thenextwebconference
• Dutch cowboys
• Techcrunch

Find more pictures of the next web 2008 on flickr.