Years ago we were at Le Web in Paris on the famous day when the organizers pre-empted the event with a series of political stump speeches (in French no less) to an infuriated audience.

This year the event was an unqualified success in our view although like all such events there are always armchair critics out there sniping away at it. (Running a conference of scale is a tough problem that breaks the best of them.  Try it if you dare.)

We will publish the usual content summary note next week but in terms of the event we would highlight the following points:

1. What the agenda lacked in "tech heavy" content it more than made up for with some very high caliber presenters.  Although like all large events the big sponsors got presentation slots they sent good people.  Everyone was very impressed with Marissa from Google and even Microsoft made some real progress.  Having some notable Americans fly over (Robert Scoble, Mike Arrington, Doc Searls, Kara Swisher to name some) made the interaction more interesting.
2. Although Loic made a big mistake with the politicos years ago he scored a huge win with Christine Lagarde who is the Minster of Finance of France.  We’ve lived in France for four years and have never seriously considered practicing our technology advisory work locally here but after seeing her it’s pretty clear that France may be implementing some programs that will change the game. 
3. Having lots going on at once gives everyone something to do.  The start-up competition was mobbed (and warm by that virtue as well) and had one of the top three showcases of emerging technology companies we have seen at any conference in the world.  Beyond that the expo rooms had things to see and Google and Facebook put rooms with programs together too. 
4. As usual lots of discussion and networking was going on.  Le Web has always been fairly laid back with few people just sitting there listening to the presentations.  This venue made it even more enticing for people to be around the talks but really doing their own thing, having discussions and meeting people.  The event is especially good for the young crowd that really enjoys mixing it up with the crowd.

Part of Le Web is coming with the right attitude. Le Web was never about incredible deep technology insights but rather about seeing a bunch of interesting content and bits of technology from around Europe and interact with new people while doing some creative work yourself.  You also can’t just sit back at Le Web and expect it all to come to you. Move around and you’ll find happiness.  (It’s okay to expect heat, network connections and food but some of these were circumstances only partially in control of the organizing team.)

If I had to position it I’d say it’s kind of between an O’Reilly ETech and a TED.  It still needs to find more of a brand identity and harmonize with that.  For example how nice should the food and dinner events be?  For a poor 23 year old they were fine. For a 40 year old corporate executive or venture capitalists they were totally unacceptable.  (Remember you’re trying to get these types together right?)

All conferences suffer a bit in the online world today.  We can get so much done and participate remotely (usually for free) it makes it hard to justify the time and expense required to go somewhere.  But Le Web was worth the time.  The second day was inspiring, especially the afternoon.  That alone was worth the trip.

Tags: #leweb, leweb, conferences

A healthy subset of the global geeks are settling into Berlin later this month for a stream of web-technology-focused events.  As "obvious" as is the inevitability of cloud computing may be to most of us there are still a huge number of technical and user obstacles to overcome before it can really be called mainstream.

Setting raw bandwidth speed and coverage aside for the moment there will be plenty of discussion of the software and service-based issues facing cloud computing adoption at the Web 2.0 event in Berlin.   In particular we’d highlight the following:

1. Cross platform: There’s been some splintering of client-side technologies like IE, FF, Safari, iTunes/iPhone and now Chrome to name a few.  How will they get harmonized?  What about Adobe Flash, Flex and AIR?

2. Scaling: Amazon and Google have started efforts to try and lead the way here but the ability to create, run and scale cloud applications is particularly difficult given the sheer size of the user population.  The cloud may be "elastic" but how long does it take to stretch and contract?  These companies will be in Berlin to talk about this and how smaller firms like RightScale and Elastra may help.

3. Development Vision: What are the right sets of server-side technologies to build on for the long-term?  Location-based services are increasingly being integrated into applications as the virtual and real world applications meld together.  How is that going to come together over time? 

There’s no doubt that there will be much more to cover in the three days we’ll be in Berlin and for those interested in an even deeper dive their are events like BarCamp that precede the Web 2.0 event and some special after-events aimed at further socializing and human collaboration.

As a reminder feel free to use our Research 2.0 discount code "webeu08gr63" for a substantial discount on registration. 

As a research firm we may select conferences a bit differently than those who go for "networking" reasons.  We went to quite a few conferences three or four years ago and they served us quite well as a firehose of information and new contacts to replace what had been lost after a few years in "management" on Wall Street. 

Besides being back up to speed a few things have also changed since then.  First of all online information and social networking has evolved very quickly.  So often access to the presentation and related material is available during or immediately after the event.  Somewhat perversely the presentation content that companies bring to investment conferences is often available online *before* conference attendees can see it.   For example there is a UBS conference today and a number of companies scheduled to present filed their content with the SEC early this morning so we’ve already had a chance to review it all by 7:30 a.m. but I digress.

They key to conferences these days is getting to them at a point where they have a critical mass of content and attendees but before they go super commercial as many do.  They also obviously have different content focuses today so it’s more possible to attend shorter, more narrowly defined events.    For example we just attended a two-day workshop on open source software in Europe that was worth the time and very complete.  By doing it we are able to very effectively get our arms around all that we need to know for the next six to twelve months.

Our next event is the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin on October 21-23 which is very focused on more practical content around emerging web technologies.  As we prepare for broader enterprise adoption in the coming few years we think this is an important area to focus on.  It is after all the commercial absorption of these technologies that will define some of our best investment results in the next five years which is what matters most to us and our clients.

The hands-on focus of many of the talks will be injecting a healthy dose of reality regarding many of our key research areas including cloud computing, social networks, mobile Internet, online collaboration, and analytics to name a few.  We also expect to get some new insights on some public companies in our ecosystem like Adobe, Google and Nokia.

For anyone that wants to enjoy a 35% discount for the event please use our discount code: webeu08gr63 and let us know if you are coming.

Tags: web2expoEU, web2expoEU08, w2e_europe08, eurotech, ADBE, GOOG, NOK

We’re preparing for a productive Web 2.0 conference in Berlin October 21-23.  Recently Tim O’Reilly was shaken up so much by being in such close proximity to the fires of the financial meltdown at the NYC Web 2.0 Expo that he had to rewrite his whole speech to refocus on doing things that "matter" (instead of mashups that show the correlation between crime in Chicago and milkshake flavor choices at an In-N-Out burger in LA.)

In October we should be able to focus a bit more on technologies and start-ups, particularly more from Europe.  We see Europe as a much more fertile ground for startups for a number of reasons.  While Europe lacks some of the features of Silicon Valley it has some different elements that can be just as effective.  There’s no shortage of talent and technology expertise which makes it a hotbed of activity.  Additionally many large companies still prefer to use and even champion local technology to help small firms get a business foothold and critical real-world feedback. 

We’re also starting to see increasing VC activity in Europe as leading firms like Union Square Ventures have shifted more of their focus to Europe and even started to make some investments. Zemanta being a good recent example and it’s even based in Solvenia.    It’s been a long time coming but we see a sustained upswing of activity here because the environment is becoming more "target rich" every day and the expectations and level of VC competition is less heady than what one finds today in the Valley and even now in Boston and NYC. 

In addition to being at the event we’ll be actively covering the more interesting pieces here and hosting a small group dinner on the nights of the 21st and 22nd.  If you haven’t been to Berlin it’s a great place to be.   We also have a code (webeu08gr63) which gets 35% off the registration.  We’ve distributed to our clients but the conference organizers said we could also post it here. 

Tags: web2expoEU, web2expoEU08, w2e_europe08, eurotech

For the second year in a row venture-capitalist-aimed Red Herring, self-proclaimed “chronicler of the spectacular ascendancy of the technology industry,” brought its road show to Boston, self-proclaimed Athens of America. Boston is the birthplace of information-technology-centric venture capital but about as relative to the movement today as Athens is to culture. Everything really interesting in information technology (IT) has moved west or east. The history is nice but even the computer museum moved out to Silicon Valley.

So it was nice to pretend that we were in the center of action for a few days. That action came on three fronts: patent/intellectual property issues, open source software (OSS) trends, and the convergence of B2C and B2B. The issues all collide and overlap of course.

It was pure coincidence I’m sure that Marshall Phelps, Microsoft Deputy Counsel and IP guru, spoke at Red Herring Boston the day before the left wing of the OSS movement rolled out the third iteration of its GNU General Public License (GPL v3) at a venue on the other side of Boston Harbor. Linux is licensed under GPL v2. Phelps did not specifically mention the GPL or Linux but said large monolithic operating systems—and implicitly the licenses on which they depend—are dead. I have felt for some time that the OSS movement’s generals were fighting the last war. To hear a Microsoft exec speaking publicly that the end of the beginning is in progress was another proof point. Investors seem to already understand this, voting with their pocketbooks for opportunities in the next IT era.

The new era is all about content, the user experience and what a grey hair (I wish I had some) like me calls the convergence of B2B and B2C. Now that convergence is called social networking based on Web 3.0. A dozen or so startups premiered their elevator pitches at Red Herring Boston covering ways to help raise your kids, plan personal and corporate parties, collaborate on business intelligence requirements by eliminating that traditional IT bottleneck—the guy who knows how the report writer software works. IT is becoming two way and the supply chain is becoming hybrid (product and service delivery) as we felt it would ten years ago in coining the term “supply chain exchange.” Venture capital investing is all about patience and attending a conference like this reminds me that AR&D waited to get a return on its $70,000 investment in DEC. That’s a little bit of that Boston VC history; AR&D’s return was $355 million.

To loop back to Microsoft’s Phelps’ comments, the new license structure of course will be heavily Software as a Service (SaaS).

As for the OSS effect, open source software is heavily under the covers of the B2B-B2C ideas. While the OSS generals are thinking about strategies to move Linux on to the desktop, the desktop is disappearing to be replaced in the same was as the monolithic operating system by dozens of new form factors. The expression—“think about if you could do such and such when you open your laptop”—was common. This was true even by those whose whole business plan is built around new appliances that will slowly depress the need for either desktops or laptops.

Of course, IT is not the only story in this town or at Red Herring any more. Half the conference was biotech and cleantech. As a hypochondriac that drives a 20-mpg pickup truck, I didn’t attend any of those sessions.

–Dennis Byron

Tags: OSS, Microsoft, venture capital, Linux

There are many good reasons to come to France but technology conferences (unless they are hosted by someone like O’Reilly) are not one of them.

Since we were in the neighborhood we couldn’t resist stopping in for a few hours of day 2 at the third annual Les Blogs conference now renamed Le Web to account for what is supposed to be a broader focus on the Internet and technology.

The first surprise was the fact that most of the presentations were vague marketing pitches without much content or time allowed for Q&A and interaction. One presenter from last year, Mena Trott, was so nervous she gave a 5 minute talk and ran off stage rather than offer Q&A; this despite the fact that her firm, Six Apart, was staging the event.

Certainly the worst aspect of the conference was the fact that the man leading it, Loic Le Meur , is a self-absorbed technology entertainer. So much so that he aborted the scheduled conference program to insert French politicians who came and gave stump speeches without even offering an open forum to discuss the many policy issues holding back commercial technology innovation in France.

In so doing this he insulted and offended the pan-European audience he had hoped to build and they were visibly and vocally upset.

Ironically the poor handling of the content led to better than average networking activity as most fled the presentation room to find other people to talk to. The conference was sold out and there were several hundred fairly interesting people in attendance. With many of them swearing off coming to Le Web 4 it may create an opportunity to do something new to provide the true emerging Internet technology conference many are seeking.

As in all bad situations we spent some time trying to get some interesting or useful information and there were a few small bits to be found.

Myspace: They certainly offers some interesting lessons on user-generated content and site use as well as the potential for the very success of site to precipitate a decline. Myspace picked up where Friendster left off, particularly for musicians and the pre-18 crowd that wanted to reach them.

Because Myspace didn’t explicitly prevent the use of HTML in forms, users were able to exploit the loophole to create highly individualized and often quite ugly personal pages. This was a major feature that young users loved.

The large number of friends a typical of Myspace users is more about the projected audience that a person feels they are playing to and looking to fit into rather than the traditional concepts of friendship.

Because Myspace has become so successful marketers and advertisers are injecting so much spam that the user community is being crushed by it. Teens, although impressionable, hate intrusive ads and will migrate away eventually.

The Myspace perspectives above were presented by Danah Boyd and those interested in knowing more will enjoy visiting www.danah.org.

Second Life: There is palpable cynicism around the success of Second Life. I’d guess the reason is that they are showcased at so many conferences and by the media that people are tired of hearing about it. So although they presented their usual impressive statistics the crowd has started to see through them and realize that there are very few regular users of Second Life.

Despite their approaching 2M registrations they have just 18,000 concurrent users. Although the company does post a metric of 700,000 “active” users the math suggests that what we would all consider a real active users to be something less than 500,000. We will have hard numbers to post later.

Still Second Life is growing and it is yet to be seen how it will evolve over time. There was a bit of consensus around multi-player online game experts that the considerable IP issues may have to be tackled before we can go much further in these online areas.

Mobile Phones: Creative uses for mobile phones are likely to remain a hot investment area in 2007 and 2008 as the number of subscribers expands from the current 2B to 4B by 2010. One firm, BLYK, is focused on free, advertising supported phones for a big chunk of the next 2B users. Mobile phones have become the third or forth item people always carry with them (along with wallet/purse, keys and a watch) and as such is fertile ground for new applications.

Again personalization of the device and its functions is the key for consumers. From little personalized carry straps to ringtones to LEDs to the ability to beam a photo or song as a gift are all important aspects to end users. Most know that most common application people use on a mobile phone is the clock. Ignoring these consumer preferences and use cases would be a big mistake.

Many mobile users are holding back on broad adoption of data-based services because pricing remains a mystery.

Six Apart: Mena Trott of Six Apart said little before running off stage. Her comments included the fact that personal bloggers are documenting their personal experience to share with others, care about design flexibility, get good use of prompts to come up with new posts, love to post photos and feel that privacy and control is critical even if they don’t use it. Nothing remarkable from her.