We are well represented at this huge show second year in a row. Last year, at this forum, we re-launched Curl for the US market. I am not sure if there are more people attending this time, but its quite a crowd.
The keynote sessions are somewhat under-whelming. Yesterday, Mark Andreessen (Mozaic/Netscape fame) was quite good, remembering how he and Vint Cerf created the idea of cookies on the back of an envelope over a weekend. He wondered how such ideas, supposed to be temporary fixes, have sustained for fifteen years. When asked about security exposures, he said, of course these technologies will suffer security threats. I am now listening to Jonathan Schwarz, head of Sun, the ponytailed CEO, preaching the gospel of open source and why he acquired MySQL for a billion dollars. He says, there are 70,000 downloads of MySQL every single day. He likes to reach that number to sell other Sun platform stuff. There are quite a few new start-ups, all doing something on photos, or social networking. Andreessen's new company "Ning" provides a platform to create your own social networking. Monetization and business value are terms used more frequently. Several conversations during lunch or breakfast centered around "how do these companies make money?'.
Another interesting phenomenon at the show is the presence of all kinds of companies not seen before at this forum. Juniper Networks (a supplier of routers, hubs,..), HCL (a consulting company from India), Nokia (supplier of phones), etc. I did not see a booth from Google, or Apple, or Facebook. They don't need any marketing at this forum. For the first time, I saw IBM and Oracle at big booths pushing I don't know what. Everyone seems to claim some offering or some links with Web 2.0. It is such a amorphous phrase that anyone can claim to be a Web 2.0 company. Great marketing for O'Reilly group.
We had quite a number of visitors during last two days. This time, the visitors seem more engaged and ask more in-depth questions. Occasionally, you hear someone asking "what do you do and what's RIA?". Many people like our Facebook contact graph demo as a desktop application on Curl Nitro. The visual picture of circles moving around is fascinating. Thanks to Doug for creating such a great demo.
Now, let me hear what Jonathan Schwarz is saying. Oops..he just said, "The network is the computer, but data is the currency". What a wisdom! He has to justify MySQL as a good investment.
It is pretty funny how the term "Web 2.0" gets thrown around. It is also amusing how everyone is trying to jump on to the social networking craze. Social networking is great, but it is not a business panacea. People just don't have the time or interest to participate in more than a couple of networks.
That Facebook demo sounds interesting. Is it available on the net somewhere?