Monday, February 20, 2006

Mashed

Day ONE of Mashup Camp has ended with Yahoo Martinis at the Computer Museum. They were great but I'd have to give Microsoft the kudo of the day for hosting an espresso coffee bar for the duration of the conference - outstanding and the only way I could prepare my brain to absorb the number of companies, mashups, ideas, and APIs flooding this infospace.

This open conference format is very nice. It only took about 30 minutes for the group to pull together an excellent agenda that certainly was comparable to what I've seen at other conferences, and tended to involved the audience to a much greater degree. As organizers Gold and Berlin indicated (and we all have noted) the coffee breaks and bar time are often the most productive part of a conference, so why not build the conference around this and the participants rather than hope to anticipate what they'll need/want/listen to.

I'd have pix if my Treo was synching, which it's NOT....

For details on the sessions go HERE

JoeDuck's Blog

Are Mashups Napsterization....backwards?

I can't get over how hard the big guys are working to feed handy APIs to developers at no charge and with little obligation. In the session I'm sitting in right now, led by A9 search which has basically turned over the search key to the vault to developers. Good for them. Disruptive and destabilizing = more fun, opportunity, and innovation.

I get the feeling from developers that people are tired of the current broad, scattered search model. A9's suggesting, I think very correctly, that the future is in vertical search where specialists in various niches use open search models.

JoeDuck's Blog

Mashup Camp is rocking..

Kudos to all associated with Mashup Camp here in (chilly) Mountain View CA. This "unconference" has a lot of the normal conference perks but has brought a lot more attendee input to the table by using the "open conference" format. This morning attendees proposed sessions and there was no shortage of great ideas and themes. I'm sitting in the "Monetization" session now enjoying a spirited discussion of how/what/when can you monetize the mashups and how this may impact your relationship to the API providers, many of whom are represented in this session.

JoeDuck's Blog