Social Conference Tracking of Mobilize08

I have this new found hobby of tracking a conference live with all my gizmos while I listen, learn and network at a conference.

Last thurs I was at Gigaom's Mobilize08 at San Francisco. I did a bunch of videos with my flip camera to goto youtube and facebook, pictures from my iphone that I emailed to twitpic to go on twitter and on facebook mobile to goto facebook photos.


My friendfeed will give you a glimpse of my social conference tracking of the conference.

I went in at noon. The audience pulse speaks volumes!



The audience were business folks and lots of VCs all looking for the latest trends in mobile space, very different from the geek crowd in usual valley events.

I blogged the keynote of Richard Miner of Android live with a quick flip video and live blog post here.

My favorite was the promise of Social Media on Mobile - a panel with Chamath palihapitiya of facebook, John Faith of Myspace, and Evan Tana of Loopt and Noelia Amoedo of Hi5 which supports Opensocial.

If you are someone tracking the mobile space, you can see the difference in their approach from answers of Chamath Palihapitiya of Facebook and John Faith of Myspace. The moderator Sebastian worked very hard but ended up grouping facebook and myspace together often.

Here is a snippet, I have more of the videos on facebook. This is the panel that brought me to the conference. I am going to compile rest of the videos of this session and blog about the promise of Mobile and Social and Facebook's opportunity in detail later.



I got the pulse of the audience by talking to the launching startups, VCs, media folks and attendees.

Startup Plusmo has a cool sports App on the iphone, worth checking out!



Pete of Trapster has a speed trap on the Dash GPS. He showed his cool preview of trapster on the iphone and Blackberry.




The conference content was good, rooms were very packed. I met a whole bunch of cool people who were at demofall08 back at mobilize08 all hungry to find the latest mobile startups and trends.

Philip of Nekkei Electronics was back from demo to Mobilize08.



Tim Hay of Venturewire summarizes the conference





This one is from the last panel of the day!




The conference staff and volunteers were wonderful. I missed veggie food. Thank You! Jennifer Santana! gigaom volunteer who is a UC Berkeley student from Inveneo went out of her way to arrange for some for me

Overall a good conference!

Rich Miner at Mobilize08 keynote now - state of mobile space and Android open platform

Blogging live from Mobilize08 now!
Rich Miner keynote on mobile industry landscape going on now!

My quick live summary:

He first set the stage of whats new, why industry is at a tipping point.
- iphone launch, Android announcement, new wave of openness.

Next he talks about his experience at Orange as a developer and Orange ventures and addresses the challenges:

• app signing for each carrier, each network
• jave programming is fragmented for app dveloper,
• rev share deals for carriers is each different and time consuming for app
• developers.
• diff between native apps on phones vs java app of developer cannot talk to each other.Why mobile isimportent

Why is Mobile important?
3Bil mobile phone users worldwide, 1 Bil in US for Google to reach its vision.



Then he talks about Android Framework
- Linux Kernal
-Navtive apps can talk to third party app with seamless integration.
- power to developers - long tail of internet now brought to mobile space
- lessons for carriers to think differently to monetize using ads and micropayments and not build walls around content

I feel nostalgic from my first startup Coola experience as we built a device agnostic mobile middleware to connect apps on mobile to web services, we built on Palm Os and added CE client in 2000. Wish Android existed then!

The most interesting part of this talk is his simplicity at expressing the power of Android as the power of developers and the promise to make Android opensource eventually.

VLAB event - Lifestreaming panel by Kara Swisher with Friendfeed's Bret and Seesmic Loic Le Meur (updated)

I plan to blog live and capture some video with my flip at tonight's event.
update: No wifi in Standford B-school for vlab, so no live blog, sorry!

Friendfeed and Seesmic in the same panel and with Kara Swisher as the moderator, must be fun!

I am friendfeed fan and user and I love the video conversation idea of Seesmic.

I did a post about feedwars in summer, as facebook has all my friends and feeds me update every day but within a private setting as compared to friendfeed. Now with facebook connect feeds, what is friendfeed's positioning? Their rooms concept is comparable to Seesmic's channels (they don't call them channels, what is it?)

Where are we going with livestreaming? Oh I wish my iphone would do Qik without a jailbreak!

Kara Swisher, Co-Executive Editor, All Things Digital, Wall Street Journal

Panelists
Bret Taylor, Co-founder, FriendFeed
Loic Le Meur, Founder, Seesmic
Jeff Clavier, Founder, Softtech VC
Leah Culver, Co-founder, Pownce

See you there!

Update: The panel was fun. Lot of discussion about the future of real time sharing on the web.
Bret Taylor of Friendfeed is so sincere and committed to build a fundamental long-term business.



Seesmic looks more interesting to me after hearing the entertaining and smart ceo Loic Le Muer who is super active on twitter.



Also the fact that Seesmic integrates into friendfeed now is cool..



I took lots of video, most turned out to be greater than 100MB which is youtube's limit. Kara cracked up her moderator whip and get everyone focused on their b-model, what they have learnt as entrepreneurs with her quick wit and kept us on our seats.

Blogging from Yahoo HackDay - Yahoo going Social and Developer Excitement (updated)

I am here at Yahoo Sunnyvale headquarters for Openhack08.

Just saw the overview of how Yahoo is opening its platform.

Yahoo has executed on the promise on their CTO's talk from Web2.0 Expo in April. I did posts about SEG - social email graph back in Oct 07 and yahoo is heading in that direction now.



I am excited about Yahoo App with Opensocial, their new YML and the architecture of Yahoo OS looks good.

There is good developer energy, I see lot of known faces from the facebook world - Jia Shen of Rockyou, Waleed od Weekend Apps etc. Is Jia going to get us a full set of Yahoo Apps next? very cool

Next Yahoo Apps overview is starting, I'll get some video of it. Ciao.

Updated with a roundup video.


Yahoo Hackday08 Sep 12 2008 - Roundup from sujam on Vimeo.

The icing on the cake of DEMOFall - Entrepreneurs's spontaneous 6 seconds

I have been lucky to be involved with the awesome DEMO Conference team so passionately focused on helping 72 new game changing startups launch the next wave of products for the past two days in San Diego at Demofall.

The icing on the cake was the spontaneous call by the demo entrepreneurs this evening, who decided to take 6 seconds each to share their appreciation for what demo meant to them and their launch experience at the closing demogods award ceremony dinner.

Here is a quick video which I streamed live onto Chris Shipley's Qik stream using her phone. It was a special moment shared by everyone at demofall tonight and I could not have captured it except for the Qik. Thank you Qik team!



Demo is truly about the entrepreneurs and run so professionally with such eye for detail. Its heart-warming to see the entrepreneurs sincere comments. Good luck to all of them, see you at the next DEMO.

Day 2 at demofall08 - updated w new videos

Look at the audience excitement! More cool startups launching today.



Here is Katie of WSJ talking about Web2.0 companies she saw at demo today!




I personally like Heycosmo.com and Koollage from today's demos particularly.

Demo organizes the event such that each startup gets 6 minutes on stage and everyone gets to watch the demos with no distraction. Then they open the pavilions where the startups each have a booth. I'll checkout the companies there and write again.

demofall - walt mossberg vs kara swisher panel

Blogging live from demofall08 - Funny, can't capture this totally, going to try and capture the key topics.


Kara Swisher vs Walt Mossberg on latest tech topics!
Kara- Chrome, why Mossberg gave a negative review?
Walt - no bookmark manager, etc features walt expects. Speed is not ready for prime time.
Google is worried that MS their competitor controls IE hence rush to launch Chrome.
Kara - Google is large and powerful, do they have to do the browser.
Walt - Google believes in webapps, so Google says think of this as a platform.
gmail has done well, still behinf y!mail, but docs slow. So you could think of Chrome as a web operating system.
Walt likes IE8 is good, both IE and Chrome have promise to compete with firefox.
Kara - Google becoming too powerful?
MS inOS, Apple in music, Google reaching that close to 70% almost a monopoly in advertising.
Kara thinks its like a choice between terminator vs Voldemart.

Social Network, facebook (OH How I disagree with this part of the talk !!!)
Kara - In two yrs facebook is not a bigdeal. She compares facebook to AOL.
Walt - social network as a destination site, will it exist in 2 yrs.
Kara - thinks its not going to be one destination site.
Walt thinks facebook can survive if they syndicate across the web. He likes Xobni.

Iphone

Walt articulates amazing adoption of iphone apps. iphone, Rim and Android. He addresses bandwidth - broadband speed in US.
Kara says US is 3rd world of broadband speed in the world.
Kara likes all smart phone touch pad, mobile browser in all.

Q&A now: Role of internet standards?

Q&A: Why are they at demofall and not TC50.
Kara- Getting leactures on journalism ethics by Arrington is like getting parenting tips from Britney spears. It is uneccessary to be rude and compete on the same dates, it doesn't help the entrepreneur.
Walt - added that demo is the best place to find new products and trends, it never occured to me to not come to demo ever.

Walt and Kara have summarized the spirit of all attendees here at demofall, with all excitement on the new products and entrepreneurs!

demofall day 1 live blog

Chris had a creative colorful welcome by stick figures dancing which is part of demo tradition.
She gave a very eloquent summary of where the info tech world is moving. Web1.o as we all know it, web2.0 which is transactional web, social web, and now coming up the distributed web.

Trying to get part1 of her keynote video to youtube.



This is followed by cool demos.I am doing a tweet of startups I find exciting. I am trying to blog, tweet, check my iphone if a demoer has an app and also take video all at once, so you are better off by just watching my friendfeed or demos' official friendfeed

Cool demos - gloop - peer to peer photo sharing, ffwd=web meets tv, ioSAN fast storage for IT, invision.tv, bluelave technologies, paperless pens etc etc etc, all cool stuff.

demofall08 live coverage and startup nostalgia

I am in San Diego for demofall08 and plan to blog live as best as I can.

Today the conference opened with a reception at 6pm. All through the day entrepreneurs were seen huddling in small groups charging the air with their upcoming launch excitements.

I had first come to Demofall2000 to launch my first startup Coola and it set the bar high for me about a product launch and induced in me the excitement for startup energy and for tracking new trends in technology.



I am up at this hour as I am too charged with my conversation with Walt Mossberg today. I had an amazing conversation about my past dreams for mobile space from my Coola experience, and his views about mobile devices today - iphone, android, windows mobile and Palm and my favorite topics - Dash, facebook and social media!

I am always a fan of Walt, but his clarity of thinking and ability to capture the history of tech industry and articulate where it can go is very refreshing.

What a difference I feel as an attendee instead of an excited, naive entrepreneur! I am curious about the attendees and will try to capture the real mood here and my learnings for the next two days!

Facebook Garage Palo Alto Live Blog of Fb Connect Edition

I am listening to Dave Morin present Facebook Connect from Blue Chalk Cafe in Palo Alto.

Julia Lam has done an awesome job with the logistics and facebook developers have loaded this place with amazing energy and support for facebook platform.

7pm: I. Dave Morin presents Facebook Connect

It can be summarized in 3 key points: Feed, Friends, Identity

a) Friends - Facebook has your real friends.
b) Social Context acts as a filter
You can learn more about your friend if you knew the same friend was on digg and had a certain preference.
c) Identity/Dynamic Privacy
People share on facebook because of the privacy setting. Dynamic privacy is all about user control. With dynamic privacy with fb connect users can take this comfort level to the web. When you change privacy setting on facebook, it will reflect on a fb connected web site.

Mike Vernal fb connect engineer presents an App "The Run Around"

Features to show in detail:

1. Connect users to your site
2. Option for user to publish an action to facebook.
3. Friend linking - finding friends on a site who are also my facebook friends.

1. Track state of user to connect user to your site

Facebook tracks three scenarios a) user not logged into site, not logged into facebook, b) user connected to site not facebook and c) session renewal - Checks if user is using the site and allow a session for 20 min. This will ensure active user from a site to allow feeds to facebook.


2. Identifty - Profiles and Logged-In State
Fb connect give three choice to developers to select the most natural experience to connect user to their site.
a) Embed user info in site using fbml call eg Welcome b) Client library c) Server library

3. Feed - Sharing Content
Register set of template that corresponds to type of story to publish to profile.
Call Fb.Connect.ShowFeed Dialog.

4. Communication - Server FBML & Requests
Client and Server side is relevant
fb:serverfbml

5. Communication - Connect Request - connect friends already using that site to connect up their account. Again in three steps to respect user intent and user privacy.
Step 1: App developer can suggest connections
Step 2: Allow user to send invites
Step 3: Register post authorize URL and rotate it.

6. Dynamic Privacy - Putting user in control
ON facebook - give user control their privacy and relation with applications
On fb connect - user is in control on what info is shared or to opt-out
On your site/app - Give tool to developers. Today users can use friend list on facebook to manage different category of users. You can do the same with fb connect to allow different friendlist of users certain access.

7:58pm : Presentations starting now! signing off to take some videos now.