future of web apps Archive

Over the last year I have attended many conferences across the country. Some have been good, some have been bad, some have been pricey. You can read all of my conference coverage and decide which you agree/disagree with. I am a tough grader of conferences because most cost money to attend.

I would say that my favorite conference from the past year is Future of Web Apps. Streaming Media East was probably my least favorite, not because of the conference, but due to Jeff Jarvis and his continued self-promotion through one of the sessions. After Jeff and the conference organizers went at it publicly, I doubt Jeff will be back next year.

What makes a great conference great and a bad one bad? Simple. It's a recipe. You need to have the right ingredients, all combined correctly. For example, ever eat a cookie right out of the oven? Tastes like crap unless you let it cool for a few minutes. Same thing here. Making sure everything works for a conference is the same. The venue, the price, the attendees, etc., all play into the recipe.

Alex has a good overview from the startup standpoint for which conferences make the most sense to attend and those you should throw money at. He says that DEMO is the best place to show off your startup but that the fee is high (I believe $20k for 5 minutes?). If you are a startup looking to launch/build buzz at an event, Alex's post is a must read. It will save you the time of wasting your money on a bad event.

Alex fails to mention that you need MONEY to attend/present at these events. For every startup that has funding and can afford a DEMO presentation, there are 500 more that can't. Alex includes some info on PR generation while at the event. I would take it a step further and suggest that you stay in town for 1-2 days where it makes sense to meet new connections. You traveled all this way for the conference, why not maximize your buzz generation and friend potential. I use this tactic to complete interviews over the extra days.

Jeremiah touches on this with his follow-up post where he discusses that not every startup has the funds to attend the expensive events and should look local as well. Of course Jeremiah is in Silicon Valley where it seems many of the events are.

Scoble joins in the conversation by suggesting that you should use Upcoming to track conferences. "Thanks to Upcoming.org they (his friends) bring me the best events and I can look and see which ones of them are going," he notes. For local conferences and meetings, Meetup is another good source. In NYC, I haven't heard anyone mention Upcoming but Meetup is mentioned almost daily.

I have ultra-limited funds which makes it difficult to attend most conferences. Even though I receive press passes, attendance is still expensive. In most cities a decent hotel is $100/nte, airfare can run $1000+ so even without the cost of attending the conference, the costs can still go over $2k for a 5-day conference.

Here are some tips I use for reducing the costs of attendance:

• Travelzoo – this is my favorite site for travel-related info. They have awesome deals almost anywhere (at least the big cities) and can save you mega bucks. And most of the deals let you keep the points/miles you earn.
• Credit Card points/miles – this is one that most people don't take advantage of. Make sure the cards you use for these trips and expenses give you something in return. I have stayed many a free night because of these cards, and spend 21 days in Europe without paying for one night in a hotel with points.
• Flyertalk Forums – an awesome discussion board for help with travel and for maximizing your ability to earn/use points. If you are a regular traveler, this is an absolute must read.
• Cheap Airfare Guide – Markus has launched a guide to help you find the best airfare.

The truth is that it will take a bit of time to work the deals. But if you can save $1k or more, isn't it worth it? Even if you or your startup have cash, why waste it where it's not needed!

I would love to get out to Gnomedex but doubt it will happen this year. At this point I have TechCrunch20 on the calendar as the big conference for this fall. I am on the roster for Future of Web Apps but doubt that I will be able to afford the travel costs.

Finally, I reviewed Confabb last week. Confabb is looking to become the destination for conferences worldwide.

Editor's note: Alex's company, AdaptiveBlue is a sponsor of CenterNetworks.

Below is Jason Sadler's recap from Day 2 of the Future of Web Apps in London. Jason is co-founder of popular startup Only Human and also runs a blog at Thought & Theory. The following presenters are covered below: Mark Anders, Knoi Vinh, Simon Willison, Jonathan Rochelle, Daniel Applequist, Rasmus Lerdorf and Richard Moross/Stefan Magdalinski. (Allen's note: This is a great recap post, very worth the read.)

Mark Anders (Adobe)

Mark's presentation started off with a great overview of the trends of web platform technology: developer productivity, performance scalability and reliability, technical integration and new application capabilities. This is where Adobe Flex comes in, creating flash based web applications with rich Actionscript framework and the ability to use it for free on Windows, Mac and Linux. Mark's demo of creating a Flickr Photofinder via tags was very interesting. The software seems to use a similar WSYIWYG editor like Macromedia Dreamweaver (code/design view), heavy emphasis on using "states" which give you the ability to have two (or more) versions of the same file open within one file, a markup language called MXML and a style component to support CSS.

The next demo Mark showed was that of Apollo, the same product Michael Arrington mentioned about 5 times in his presentation (so I guess that means it is good?). Mark's description of Apollo was using Flash and XML to create desktop applications via local files, online/offline content, drag/drop and background files. He showed two demos, one that was an application called Maptactular, which used Google Maps with flash overlayed, and the second demo was an eBay desktop application that had most of the features of eBay.com.

I remember when Flash first came to the web world and there were a lot of compliance issues and version control; who was using which x.0, who had what web securities, what your local cache settings were set to, etc. If web applications use this technology and users aren't up to date on the newest flash player they will have to go through the download and install process. For things as fragile as web applications, which you want to reach as large of an audience as possible, aren't you going to run into all the same previous flash hurdles? I could see a lot of features being created in Flex, but I am skeptical about how many real-life applications will be made with it.

Twingly (Featurette of the conference)

Ryan took a second to bring two students from Sweden up on stage to show off a small web application. The application was a 3D digital representation of the blogosphere connected to Google Maps. It showed blogs across the world, varying in intensity by the amount of light and size of the light rods. You can click any blog on the map and it will take you to that blog. There is also a small ring around the world, which represents a pie chart of the amount of bloggers per country.

Kudos to Ryan for giving these guys the time to show off their web application.

Knoi Vinh (NYtimes.com)

In coverage of Day 1 I know I said that Stefan Fountain's Soocial.com presentation was the highlight of the conference, but Khoi's speech was by far the most interesting and compelling. Coming from a background working on an editorial website (as a designer/developer), it was very fascinating to hear what Khoi had to say about how NYtimes.com dealt with editorial design challenges.

He talked a lot about templates they use and how much they get changed around but still keep them very limited on design. I wonder if someone will come up with a design-driven WYSIWYG template editor? It would open the doors for architectural planning around content and only help to focus more on the content and less on the design limitations. I completely agree with Khoi's point that there is a lot of tension between designers and editors and the curve to new technology slopes upwards very slowly.

Khoi brought up a great point about "countervailing forces in quality":

• High Definition vs YouTube
• Skype vs SMS
• TimesReader vs Memorandum
• Digital SLR's vs Camera Phones

It is almost ridiculous that in a society of growing technology the masses of people are still hooked on rudimentary and simple items. Obviously some of these have a cost involved, but it's amazing how basic some of the most used technologies are in the world.

The last point I wanted to touch on from Khoi's presentation was offend experts, not beginners. This makes so much sense because experts should have thick skin and will be much harder to offend. The last thing you ever want to do is not listen to your users and only focus on what an "expert" is telling you. Feedback comes in all shapes and sizes from different people and it is our job to do the things we believe in and take into account all the suggestions we get.

Simon Willison (OpenID)

The concept of OpenID is very solid, but I think the implementation and consistency of it around the web is going to be the hard part. In essence you are supposed to be able to get rid of all of your user accounts and passwords by using OpenID (which initially requires a user account ID, password and personal info if you desire). AOL, Symantic, DIgg and Microsoft have all joined the OpenID parade, hoping to lead the way for everyone else across the web.

The biggest problem I have with OpenID, is that if you wanted to set your OpenID account up with your own host or with a site you enjoy that isn't mainstream, what do you do if that host goes away? You would think there could be ONE domain that everyone creates an OpenID account on, but then you run into possible issues of unique names (just like today with user accounts). I think OpenID is good for the greater purpose, but at the moment it is hard to swallow for your everyday Internet user. If my mom/dad can't figure it out, is it ready yet?

Jonathan Rochelle (Google Docs & Spreadsheets)

The needs of many outweigh the needs of a few – this should be Google's mantra. A lot of people have Microsoft Office, use Word and Excel regularly, but what if this software didn't come with your computer? Are you really going to spend money on Office when you can get most of it through Google Docs & Spreadsheets (or another avenue)? Google does a great job of creating simple, easy to use and functional applications that appeal to the masses.

Jonathan talked briefly about the acquisition process, buying 2Web Technologies/XL2 Web (which he was apart of) and Upstartle/Writely. They were two separate projects that were merged to create Docs & Spreadsheets. I would love to hear more about the acquisition process and what it is like working for yourself and then coming into the Google world.

With the announcement of Google Apps Premier Edition a few days ago, you get all of the applications created by Google in one friendly/free package (until April 30, 2007 when it becomes corporate/paid subscription). Jonathan said, "We have nothing to announce at this time" while at the conference, doesn't he know it's not nice to keep secrets?

Daniel Applequist (Vodafone)

It's hard to listen to a presentation entirely dedicated to cell phone applications when the iPhone is looming overhead. I am all for the advancement of the Internet on cell phones, but once there is a full-fledged scalable browser without limitations, what's the point of any application? When I say 'application' I am referring to his demo which showcased a soccer team's stats, some video and a few other editorially related features. What can't you get from that team's website?

Don't get me wrong, the iPhone is not out yet, has not been approved by the FCC and is still in a patent war with Cisco. However, are people really going to go this route for the time being? I know that these applications aren't enticing to me at all and maybe that is simply the American outlook towards cell phones.

Again, I hate to overshadow this presentation with another Apple reference, but Apple transformed the computer when there were already computers out there and Apple also has a pretty good product called an iPod (not even close to the first MP3 player). There are cell phones with web applications that are very popular, people probably use them everyday, but when there is a fully scalable limitless web browser (wait, doesn't my Blackberry have Internet…….) who is going to use applications on their phone?

Rasmus Lerdorf (Creator of PHP)

I have to mention Rasmus' funny stab at the wireless Internet mix-up at the conference, I am sure Ryan was ready to bust some knee caps after all the hassle. Rasmus showed a couple of slides depicting images of a cruise ship, a desert and a tropical mountain. He said he had given presentations at all of these places around the world and at every one there was free wireless access – touché!

Rasmus made an excellent point that he was not concerned with the "Future of…" anything, only concerned with doing things right today and enduring the pain to get to the destination. He talked about why people contribute to things: self-interest, hormones (specifically oxytocin: nature's trust hormone), self-expression and the desire to improve the world. In all aspects of life, it is not about you, it is about what people think about themselves.

I greatly enjoyed Rasmus' presentation and think his final points were spot-on:

• Avoid participation gimmicks
• Get oxytocin flowing
• Solve one problem
• Clean and intuitive UI
• Make it fast and scalable

Richard Moross & Stefan Magdalinski (MOO)

Ryan could not have picked a better presentation to end the conference (aside from the following day of workshops of course). Richard immediately grabbed everyone's attention with a slide entitled "Print is dead." He talked about how much he enjoyed curling up in bed with his laptop to read the .PDF of a book (instead of a novel), how he loved to send informal SMS messages to people on special occasions (instead of greeting cards – which I think Hallmark is doing okay with these days) and how whenever you go to a conference everyone is bluetoothing'ing their business cards to each other (instead of handing them out like 99.9% of the attendees did).

The guys at MOO had to stand out, had to become 'remarkable' and had to tackle the challenge of using a process everyone in the web world says is dead. When they launched another company (Qoop) launched with the same concept. The difference was in MOO's dedication to using the best paper, the best trees, recyclable paper, a unique size and developing a great partnership with Flickr. When you looked at the two companies on Flickr, Qoop had two comments and MOO had 2,264! I would say they have a stronghold on the market and have created a successful product. It was interesting to hear about their marketing strategy, which was summed up in one word – free. They believed that if they gave the MOO cards away for free from the beginning and people liked them, they would be willing to buy them. They also used some small tactics to grow their brand and develop a tone using funny notes inside packaging, cute e-mails and every card shipping with a luggage tag.

I think that we can come up with a very unique partnership with MOO and I look forward to talking to Richard very soon. It was evident that a lot of people had similar aspirations as he had a line of people waiting for him after he spoke (they could have been going after the free MOO card offer though?).

Below is Jason Sadler's recap from Day 1 of the Future of Web Apps in London. Jason is co-founder of popular startup Only Human and also runs a blog at Thought & Theory. The following presenters are covered below: Michael Arrington, Edwin Aoki, Tara Hunt, Ben Holmes, Matthew Ogle, Anil Bawa Cavia, Werner Vogle, Kevin Rose and Stefan Fountain. His picks of the day are the Digg announcement about OpenID support and the Soocial Demo.  (Allen's note: This is a great recap post, very worth the read.)

Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)

A frequent TechCrunch reader myself; I was interested to hear if the tone of the site came off in Michael Arrington's speech. Michael, an eloquent speaker as most lawyers are, was straightforward and poignant. As someone who typically doesn't seem to talk much about the "little guy" in the Web 2.0 world, his speech (entitled "The Magic Formula") had some great information and insight. I came to a realization while listening to other speaker's talk and that is that everyone follows TechCrunch. A big part of this comes from Michael's tenacity to seek information, whether it online (his day job) or offline (during Jonathan Rochelle's talk about Google Docs & Spreadsheets).

Edwin Aoki (AOL)

The main point that I took from Edwin's talk was concerning the drive people have to build status or ranking via web apps. He discussed Second Life and the fact that hundred of thousands of dollars are spent every day in a virtual world. This is something I have been stressing since the inception of our first project (Only Human) and it was great to hear someone at AOL stressing it as well. Another point of emphasis was building web apps that are accessible to everyone; blind, elderly etc. This was definitely something that spawned a couple of ideas in my mind and affirmed some ideas that Dennis and I have been discussing.

Tara Hunt (Citizen Agency)

In her talk 'Fostering Online Communities,' Tara delves deep into the concept of a community and its integral parts. One of the most important points that I took note of was the succession of a site-user: from Visitor – to Customer – to Community Member. It is foolish to think that any person that comes to your website will automatically become the community member and evangelize your web community. You can, however, build a community that emphasizes key benefits such as loyalty, self-policing, word of mouth, user feedback and stronger filtering of content. Tara mentioned some key themes to a community which I think we have a strong grasp on; simple platform to use, sense of fun and play, an active dialogue, involved customer support and friendly greeting of new users. Tara, like Michael Arrington, mentioned the power of word of mouth. This is definitely the only way a small startup can possibly get off the ground utilizing blogs, RSS feeds and friendly interaction with other sites.

I spoke with Tara before the end of the conference and hope to pick her brain for some marketing ideas. It will be nice to know the exact process of guerilla marketing and buzz for future projects.

*Tara's speech confirmed two features that we are going to be implementing soon on Only Human: When someone uses the 'relate a story' feature, we will notify the original story creator and ask them if they have met this user and if they'd like to view their profile, read other stories created by them or send them a message. The other feature is anonymous story posting without user-signup. We believe this feature will be heavily used because our light users want to get involved, but are not comfortable signing up, they can post a story and take note of all the great features they are missing out on by signing up.

Ben Holmes (Index Ventures)

Dennis and I recently visited with a Small Business Development person at the University of North Florida and we had an eye opening experience that was backed up by Ben's speech. Looking back it makes me think I was a bit naive about the whole investing situation, but it all makes perfect sense when a company gives you serious amounts money. A solid point of emphasis was that Venture Capitalists are prone to invest more into a solid group of people, more than just a product. It is reassuring to find that the right people can be invested in, even before the perfect product is made. It does seem to become a financial decision at this point and you have to understand it is about managing your financials and keeping the passion going (with the allure of money sitting in the bank). Edgar spent a few minutes talking to Ben and will be following up with his opinions and insight.

As a short note, I have been reading Guy Kawasaki's books The Art of the Start and Rules for Revolutionaries. All of the major points that I dog-eared or highlighted were the important points of Ben's speech as well. If we are going to take on funding I do not think a Venture Capitalist is the way to go and that we will look to find an Angel Investor (or a few).

Matthew Ogle & Anil Bawa Cavia (Last.fm)

Unrelated to the content from the speech of the Last.fm guys, I thought they spoke well together. It is hard to go back and forth seamlessly and I thought they did a very solid job (as well as the guys from Moo). A point of emphasis that I circled in my notes was "not to over extend – scale with your growth." Our site, Only Human, can greatly relate to this because we are unveiling feature sets as the site grows and as users give feedback. It is a relief to hear that companies that are currently successful did not start out doing everything right and that users came along and stuck with them throughout the trial and error periods.

Being open with your users, giving them the ability to give feedback about anything and communicating honestly pays off. It was unexpected, but they showed an IRC chat hack that was basically an ongoing log of programming tasks, error checking etc that turned the light bulb on above many people's heads in the conference. I was previously a hardcore Pandora user, but I think I might try Last.fm out after hearing these guys speak.

Werner Vogle (Amazon.com)

It couldn't have been put better – "compete on ideas, not resources." This short statement unequivocally describes Amazon.com's EC2 and S3 services. The S3 service can be summed up as infinite hosting capability that can scale to the moon.

One of the biggest hurdles an Internet company has is not only do they have to focus on their business, but think about resources, hosting etc. Werner stressed the fact that you should be able to manage your growth easily and have resources on demand. We are thinking about using the EC2 service for our next project as it could grow very quickly and require the ease of scaling (without overspending on resources).

During the startup period there is no concrete way to figure out how many users you will have and how much of your resources they will be using, so this service could be very valuable. Werner did an excellent job presenting a very technical oriented subject in a very simple and understandable speech.

Stefan Fountain (Soocial.com – Sponsor Spotlight)

In my mind this short (10 minute) presentation was the highlight of Day 1. A lot of people would argue that Digg's announcement to use OpenID was the highlight, but for the skeptics of OpenID it was ho-hum. Going back to Stefan, the product is simply a web app that organizes all your contacts for your laptop, desktop computer, cell phone and PDA. Stefan's message was "ungimp your contacts."

I think his stage presence is what sold most of us on his product as he moved around and captivated the audience. After 8 hours of previous presenters, if you aren't Kevin Rose the chance of keeping the audience's attention is slim to none. There is no secret that the technology is not groundbreaking, but after watching Stefan's presentation I immediately signed up for his alpha software release (which currently has 380+ people signed up).

Kevin Rose (Digg.com)

Being Digg user, I was interested to see what Kevin had to say. With so many different personality types, I give Digg a lot of credit because they have to manage each one of those user's needs and motivations. Kevin mentioned an interesting point about with so many users on the site, its just inevitable that some people would not get along.

Kevin showed some interesting slides about how they are filtering out user-influenced content and what their growth has looked like. It was interesting to see how they could tell when people were gaming the system and could act accordingly or let the system take care of itself.

Digg seems to do a good job of listening to their users, yet people have been asking for a 'photos' section for quite some time.

The last announcement Kevin talked about was the adoption of OpenID. This comes after AOL and Microsoft's announcement, which makes OpenID a reality in more ways than one. I'm still kind of skeptical of how useful it will be in the future but it seems like its coming to fruition regardless.