web 2.0 expo: how did it play for peoria?

Back in my chair from Web 2.0 Expo last week. This event officially answered any lingering questions I had about whether Web 2.0 has hit the mainstream yet. This crowd of aspirational entrepreneurs grew from expected 4,800 to estimated 11,000 by the end of the event. Step right up! Who wants to be the next Kevin Rose?

Besides the WSJ article that broke first morning of conference, I enjoyed Kevin Lynch's keynote demo of San Dimas and John Batelle's chat with three entrepreneurs: Joe Krauss of JotSpot, Mena Trot of SixApart and Jay Adelson of Digg. Jeff Bezos also sparred a little with Tim O'Reilly at the beginning, whose interview-style is entertaining in that excruciating, David Brent, avert your eyes kind of way.

Also, learned a few fun things, such as:

• Jay from Revision3 talking about user "snacking" on video clip snippets that currently may happen mostly on a computer screen, but deeper video content, hosted shows are increasingly being viewed on devices like iPods and set-top boxes like DVRs

• companies are currently able to target content at individuals viewing pages (or more correctly their online clickstreams) without revealing PII (personally identifiable information) as opposed to just targeting based on the context of content of whatever page they happen to be viewing at the time. We're getting very Minority Report.
  

• adding a dimension of local to your app can up your CPMs you can charge to the tune of 10X (a search for "attorney" costs $1.59 while the term "attorney in denver" nets closer to $10.00

We also did the after-party circuit and checked out the FMP party at House of Shields, Snap.com party at TWO and finally the netvibes party at 111 Minna bar and gallery. After all that fun, it was a little more challenging than usual to get back to business as usual in the office last week!