NextWeb 2008 Event Don't have time for a full write up, so here are some trends that caught my eye;
Aggregation. There seems to be a trend in aggregation. Lots of talk about FriendFeed and a couple of start ups planning either content and/or profile aggregation. UberVu hasn't launched yet but will be a space where conversations (community) can be started around your content. Postmachina's social hardware will synchronise and aggregate social network profiles on the web.
VC. Venture capital is looking for BIG ideas, new approaches (to old problems) and growth sectors (e.g. mobile) - according to the founder of TheFunded - a social network for funded CEOs.
Business models. At last! A social network that extracts value from member data. Wakoopa is network for serious software developers and end users (.Net, Adobe, Mozilla, etc) that gathers statistics about people's usage and opinions of end user software tools. It sells this data on to the software vendors. NetLog founder reported over 30m users and a revenue stream that is 80% advertisement and 20% premium services. They also report massive demand for Group Pages and plan to launch a mobile, location based social network. Not bad for a company of only 43 people.
Other points to note;
Zilok seems to have gained a lot of traction. A place to rent anything. Proper contracts and insurance and a decent web experience for monetising everything from lawnmowers to saxophones. Very localised (because people have to meet) so some potential social benefit by enabling relationships between parties that are previously unknown to each other.
eBuddy is bigger than I thought. A meebo clone with tools that enable advertisers to reach the IM community. Love the way eBuddy hosts all their press and media info on Flickr!
Adoption of Cloud Services is very high amongst west coast start ups. The founder of Lookery, a Facebook advertsing tool says that he and most of his entrepreneur friends consider it the only way to go.
BIG hat tip to Nova Spivack of Twine who gave a "semantic web for dummies" master class. By far the most informative, insightful and profound speaker over the two days. His entire approach to the semantic web, and indeed his entire ethos, is coincidentally very Winning by Sharing.
I missed the talk by one of the founders of Dataportability.org but wanted to enjoy Friday afternoon in Amsterdam with my wonderful wife! Lunch at Gaucho followed by shopping and an afternoon nap back at The Grand hotel. Nice!
Overall an excellent experience and very well organised by Patrick de Laive and his team. Well done!
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