November 2006
The Archives
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personal
Ozomatli is awesome, Killa Kela is unbelievable
I went to see Ozomatli again last night. A great band from LA I highly recommend to go see live if you ever have a change.
One of the open acts was Killa Kela is a one man multi-vocalist, according to his MySpace site. In the old days, we used to call a guy like this a human beatbox. Check out the video below I found.
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personal
Web 2.0 Summit Summary
So the Web 2.0 summit is over and I’m back in Vancouver, reflecting on the last days. What did I learn? What can I apply in my work?
I think the most important thing I realized is that the circle of people who direct the business side of the internet is relatively small. And events such as the Web 2.0 summit very much influence the future of the internet. That doesn’t mean it’s an elite group that control the future. But by putting together so many key players, new directions are taken.
I’m currently reading Bob Woodwards “State of Denial” and it’s very much the same thing. In the Whitehouse, decisions are made based on a culture that is created by a few, who have access to the leaders. Opinions of leaders and influencers are often more powerful than data or subject matter experts.
The same thing happens everywhere, at senior levels in companies, back home, and at the Web 2.0 conference. When CEO’s or senior executives of Google, Yahoo, Amazon, AOL, Microsoft, YouTube, IBM, Adobe, Newscorp, Ask, eBay, Craigslist, FedEx, NBC, InterActiveCorp, Expedia, Alibaba, EMI, Digg, The New York Times, CyWorld and more all speak in a 3 day window and interact with a leading group of influencers, seeds are planted, ideas discussed and directions set.
Now the good news is that the direction I see is one I can go along with. And I consider myself fortunate that I was able to participate in it in some form by discussing things with other attendees. This direction is one of decentralized control of media, open standards, interoperability, connectivity, innovation and new business models. Change is massive, continuing and relentless. -
Internet
Web 2.0 Shorts
In between sessions, the organizers are playing some YouTube style videos. Some I’ve never seen, including this brilliant one.
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Internet
Picture this
A large room full of people in a conference, say about 1000. About 100 are talking to each other, the rest are all typing on their cell phones, or on a laptop, mostly powerbooks.
People either dressed in suits (sometimes with bright coloured sneakers) or in jeans and t-shirts, or some hipster outfit including haircut (hey, that’s me).
Billions of dollars in wealth fiddling around with laptops to get them hooked up to the projector.
5,000 unfilled requests to attend the “summit”
One guy from Vancouver; me, I checked the attendee list (but there is somebody from Burnaby though)
…and you have the web 2.0 summit -
Internet
The Net Generation
The best session so far. Don Tapscott (he’s Canadian eh?) gave a fascinating presentation about how young people grow up and how technology is part of their lives without really realizing that it’s there, just like breathing. I have to look at my notes for more insights but I’m encouraged that this perception of the bad teenager looking at all the wrong places online, or the bad teenagers wasting their time playing games, surfing the internet and lacking social skills is conventional wisdom. Great stuff, I even recognize some of my own behaviour in his research. -
Internet
Yahoo’s Web 2.0 Strategy
The first workshop at Web 2.0 is in a packed room (I’m sitting on the floor, I was a bit late and the session is still going). The learning is great. How to use your online community to increase value to users, publishers and advertisers by leveraging the tail. Exactly what we’re talking about on a smaller scale. It’s all about the community and giving them enough power and the tools to manage themselves. Marketing is just one voice of many (see photo), and marketers have to realize this and leverage it.
Web 1.0 – everything happens on my site
Web 2.0 – let’s open ourselves up to create communities on their terms and let us provide the platform -
personal
In San Francisco for Web 2.0
I traveled to San Francisco today. Tomorrow the web 2.0 conference starts and I’m super excited. Come back for updates about it. I took the BART from the airport to downtown and loved it. No more sweaty, expensive, traffic jammed taxi rides for me. Should have tried that a long time ago. This city is great. It’s like Vancouver, but bigger. Case in point, the art galleries have Picassos in their windows. One day I hope to live here.
William Bakker's Destination Marketing blog
William Bakker is Chief Strategist at Destination Think!. These are my personal thoughts.
