My Week At Supernova

All things come to an end

All in all, Supernova was a great experience!

In my eyes some of the key themes were:

1. The (re) centralization of information or, the minimized importance that is place on the desktop
2. Net Neutrality (just ask a ninja)
3. The future of information and the way we sift through it (search).
a. Tagging (del.icio.ous)
b. Social Search (Jookester)
4. The push to ubitquitize (I realize that is not a word) our information for access anywhere, anytime, on demand
5. There are a ridiculous amount of start ups doing the same thing!
6. The US could be much better in terms of drumming up competition in order to further broadband access
7. “Love” does play a role in business (once again, thank Craig and, to all you naysayers, good luck!)
8. Virtual worlds are not necessarily games

My favorite people from the event:

1. David Sifry (thanks for the insight)
2. Frank Gruber (we are now Linkedin)
3. Colette Vogele (call me back, I have questions about podcasting and the law)
4. Michael Copps (thanks for the inspiration)
5. Glenn Thomas (Ideal World is going to be a great movie!!!)
6. Philip Rosedale (thanks for blowing my mind)
7. Craig Newmark (thanks for the love)
8. Jeremiah Owyang (thanks for the flikr pic)
9. Jerry Paffendorf (the electric sheep company)

And of course Kevin Webach, thanks for the events!

Finally, can someone help me with my new Blog “A Media Circus”. Obviously my design skills suck!!!!

The Magical Disappearing Desktop Part 2 (the ungeek version)

I find the concept of the end of the desktop as we know it very interesting. I would like to, in this post speak using as little jargon as possible as, I have been accused of being dense and, the purpose of this blog is not to speak to the technorati as, they are much smarter than I am 

IBM pioneered the mainframe (a large computer that all other computers in a network interfaced with in order to retrieve and process information) in the 80’s. Each computer (node) on the network was essentially dumb and was subject to the will of the mainframe. The computers on the network did not run applications. They did not store very much information at all.

As the PC became affordable, information and applications were able to be stored and executed from the desktop and information was rapidly decentralized from the mainframes. This was a very powerful movement in information usage and storage.

A problem arose. What if you had more than one computer? What if you had many email clients on many different machines? What if you needed access to your computer and were without your PC?

Enter the proliferation of broadband and AJAX powered applications. It is not important that you understand exactly what these terms mean but, the bottom line is, all of a sudden information no longer need to be accessed from a mainframe or a PC. Now, information could be accessed and manipulated on the web!

AJAX allowed for word processing (or any information processing) tools to reside online and not act in the clunky manner that the static HTML web acted in. Information could once again be stored in a centralized location and accessed from anywhere at anytime. Think Gmail, Basecamp, Flikr, Picasa, MySpace, Blogger and probably 20,000 other applications that have been deemed Web 2.0 apps.

Some futurists have called for the rise of Web OS or, the web as operation system. If this were the case, why would we need a desktop?

Is the Internet really My Space?

Micheal Copps of the FCC spoke this morning. In referring to the way in which Washington was handling the broadband era he said,

“All is not well in Washington… The US is 15th in the world in terms of Broadband penetration… We totally lack a national strategy….” (this quote is a mash-up but these statements are not taken out of context)

15th in terms of broadband penetration? How is that possible? How can the leaders of the free world be so far behind in communications infrastructure?

Perhaps the Digital Revolution is being led by media companies that do not have the common person’s best interests in mind. Perhaps the internet is headed down the same road of media consolidation that we have seen in the past with other forms of media.

What will this mean in terms of how we use the internet? Censorship aside, if the duopoly (the cable companies and the telco’s) that is currently in place gains more strength what are the possible outcomes? Well, the phone companies are certainly not happy with free VOIP so, they made decide to prohibit the use of that service.

What if the massive web portals were able to use economic strength to gain traffic preference (i.e. more bandwidth).

I am writing this as he is speaking so, I have not had the ability to think about this but you can be sure I will give it more thought.

Copps made a call for all of us to take action,

“Decisions without you are most often decision against you”

The Key Is Wanting to Know

A quick plug for my company and my great co-workers...
A rising star at Morpheus Media, Andaiye Taylor, wrote this in response to an email I wrote about second life:

"I'm really going to have to make it a priority to get up to speed on this stuff. Much thanks for keeping us abreast. You're right -- this second life thing is gonna be a beast!"- Dai

You go Dai!

Second Life-First Life, Who is counting!

I was going to write about this experience but, Jeremiah does a much better job.

http://jeremiahthewebprophet.blogspot.com/2006/06/conference-in-conference-in-conference.html

The Web is a River?

David Sifry of Technorati made a very interesting remark about what the web is. He said that we need to stop thinking of the web as a series of pages and indices and begin to think of it as a river or an Event Stream.

My first thought (as I typed this concept mindlessly) was “oh boy, here we go with the pretentious, vacuous metaphors.

As I was typing I noticed that the really cool guy I was sitting next too was diligently blogging the event and snapping photos (his name is Jeremiah Owyang and his blog can be found at http://jeremiahthewebprophet.blogspot.com). Next, I noticed that he had linked to my blog. I glanced in front of me and noticecd that Frank Gruber of Somewhat Frank.com was tracking Jeremiah’s coverage of the conference on Technorati.

Each event spurred another, just like actions in a social network where. People link to people who link to ideas and so forth.

I guess I should get myself a rowboat as, I think Sifry was right!

ZoneTag

I will probably comment more on this later but I am sitting in the conference and Yahoo scientists just anounced ZoneTag. Take a look

http://research.yahoo.com/zonetag/

Save us Craig!

The first session of Supernova is over and, although I will summarize my thoughts later in the day, I would like to highlight a few things.

In a room full of fast talking technorati, Craig Newmark (Customer Service Rep and Founder of Craigslist.org) managed to steal the show with his one unique point of differentiation; Trust.

Craig said something to this effect when commenting on User Generated Media, Content and Communities

“People are very trustworthy, people are very good. As long as you help out the good guys, they will help you police the site”.

In his usual simple manner, Craig managed to effect people with his loyalty and devotion to the goodness in us all. Try feeding that strategy to the CEO’s of the world!

Supernova's Second Life

I got back to my hotel room last night and remembered that the Supernova conference did not end in real life, it continues into Second Life.

I will provide more info later but, for now, look for me (Mockben Hegel) in Second Life and I will point you in the direction of the virtual conference.

The Magical Disappearing Desktop

I went to the first cocktail party tonight and, I had about four light beers (I am watching the ole’ waistline) followed by a Martini. Needless to say, I have a nice buzz but, what I love about blogging is that it is real. I will not edit this post too much. I will just try to share what it is I am thinking and feeling (and hope you chalk the typos up to alcoholic mistakes).

As I sipped my reduced calorie libations I walked around and witnessed the heart and soul of the second coming of the web. Guys and girls around my age (29) pitched their hearts out about products they designed and have taken to market.

Was their a common thread in the room? You bet there was!

The most prevalent topic was not social media (although that was overwhelmingly present) it was not RSS, not User Generated Content. The main takeaway that I left the room with was the seemingly inevitable dissipation of the desktop.

Product after product (e.g. Sharpcast, Soonr) was aimed at providing consumers with ubiquitous access to information. The pitch was “we are blurring the lines between the internet and mobile and providing you with a hosted solution for all you digital media, and not only that, we are allowing you to share your information with your friends”.

I left thinking, “this is great but, how will all these companies, with little differentiation survive? Is the desktop doomed? Should I have another drink?”

Billboards and Convergence in San Fran

I just got to San Fran. Was here once when I was thirteen and have not been here since.
As we were driving to the hotel I noticed to billboard; one for Blinkx.tv and the other for Meevee.com.

Now, I am very familiar with these two companies but, I would be hard pressed to find someone outside of my office that was also familiar with them.

If you do not know these companies I recommend looking them up.

Convergence is on its way in San Fran!

The Agenda

I am back in the lobby of the Broadmoor (this place is awesome)and about to hop on a shuttle to the airport to head to San Fran. Here is the agenda for the conference.

http://www.supernova2006.com/go/agenda

First Blog Post in a LONG time!!!!

So, this is the first blog post that I have made in about a year. You will have to forgive my boring page and lack of experience but, in order to practice what I preach, I need to be blogging.

I am sitting in the lobby of the Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs. I had a meeting with one of my client’s today and I am gearing up to head to San Fransico for the uber-geeky Supernova conference “Making Connections in a Complex World “(so excited)!!!

I will try to post as much as possible over the next three days in order to engage/inform all the folks in my immediate circle (as well some potential new people) who could not make it out for the conference.

What am I most excited about you ask:

I am excited to hear from David Sifry of Technorati
As well as Philip Rosedale of Linden Labs (Second Life is blowing my mind)
There will also be folks from Brightcove, MySpace, Om Malik, Craig Newmark and a host of people from cool new Start Ups.

I welcome comments and email about information that you would like me to seek out. So, for all of my co-workers and friends (and friends to be), keep the comments coming!