FOWA ‘king hell

I’m sat on a beanbag sponsored by Microsoft Visual Studio watching a hoodie breaking his thumbs on one of the on site XBOX 360’s. It doesn’t get much more futuristic web app expo than that.

My head’s still all a spin from catching a glimpse of a guy reading Inside Time: The National Newspaper for Prisoners as I waited for my blueberry smoothie just now. He’s either here for the XBOX or he’s looking for a rich internet application.

Kevin Rose gave a well rehearsed and informative 25 minute lecture on what he’s learned from Digg, most notably hit the blog when things go wrong, confess, the new webocracy is inherently Catholic it seems. He built Digg v.1 in 4 weeks, Pownce in 3 months, there’s a real sense here of ‘just build’ and if you fail, fail fast, move on.

What’s great is the feeling at the expo that Europe is very different from Silicon Valley, sure SV is the poster boy, but Europe is years ahead with broadband coverage and a whole generation ahead in terms of mobile. Lot’s of quiet talk about mobile, not the tub thumping ‘it’s gonna change everything man!’ of last year. This time it’s a more measured response. Think about it, develop for it, seize the opportunity.

Robert Kalin touched on it yesterday, but beyond Amazon and Ebay where are all the next gen commerce apps? Still much more to be done in this field. He used the phrase ’social shopping’ which I think encapsualtes a great concept, shopping is a social experience and with Etsy he’s seeking to create an app that let’s you browse with friends.

Umair Haque is a brain jacked into a powerpoint presentation. Intelligent, business radical who advises the corporates like the BBC and CNN to smash their current structure and think about communities. He talked about Radiohead’s recent move into ‘pay what you want’ music publishing. It’s a model that works and scares the hell out of the labels. Between them he and Kalin could probably invent a parallel world where smoothie’s are free and beanbags are filled with pixelated beans.

Scott Rafer talked about data, what he’d learned from MyBlogLog and transparency, ‘never ever sell user data to a third party’. He’s like Richard Schiff from West Wing, but he doesn’t ‘do Orlando’.

Ryan Carson and Eric Rodenbeck both have trilby hats. Rodenbeck’s is more straw weave than Carson’s which looks like he just bagged a deer. I suspect they are the founder members of some web app coven which I know little about, but will be impelled to join.

‘Being nimble and being able to respond’ , that’s what Brian Oberkirch says yesterday was all about. I don’t do Yoga and I’m left handed so I’m not sure that phrase applies to me.

No sign of the gum chewing mullet man. I’ll live to crudely comment on another day. Just seen a whole mug full of free pens so I’m going to stock up.

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