This'll be my last post from Silicon Valley for a while. I've been here for two full weeks and I've had a fantastic time! I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mike Arrington for letting me stay at his house and making me feel so welcome - thanks Mike! It's been a hub of Web 2.0 activity in the house over the past two weeks. Fred Oliveira's been here working on edgeio, the product Mike and Keith Teare are building which will be in beta mode very soon. And Gabe Rivera of memeorandum fame has been staying here too. We've all had a great time and I consider them friends now. It's also spawned an actual Web product, the Web 2.0 Workgroup. Mike, Fred and I came up with the idea while sitting on the TechCrunch sofa drinking diet cokes, eating over-sized American pizza and watching The Daily Show (or something like that). The idea went from concept to website to an expanding network of Web 2.0 blogs very quickly, attracting such luminaries as Dave Winer and John Furrier to join. The Web 2.0 Workgroup will continue to grow organically, which is the beauty of it.
The Web 2.0 conference was a real thrill for me. The words 'energy' and 'enthusiasm' are ones that I've been associating with my experience of the conference. I've seen a lot of cynicism and even criticism of the bubble-ish nature of the conference, but it's difficult for me to identify with that because my experience was overwhelmingly positive. Perhaps that only proves I'm a conference newbie in Silicon Valley, but I'd like to hope I always maintain my enthusiasm for the Web and its growth. It's exciting when people are building so many great products and services on the Web platform. I wanna be in the middle of that :-)
I've met a lot of amazing people while I've been over here. Too many to list, but one highlight was the spicy noodles dinner with the father of RSS Dave Winer, the Workgroup founding fathers, and father of News Readers 2.0 Gabe. It was also great to meet the people I've been working for over the past months - Susan Mernit, Marc Canter, Dan Farber, and others I've done projects for. I also met my book co-author Josh Porter and briefly met Tim O'Reilly. Plus I met people I'll be working with in future (or hoping to, in some cases). I met so many great people and I ran out of time to meet others. Apologies to those people who I didn't get to meet.
I'll be back in Silicon Valley soon, with my family this time. I hope I can get a US working visa, because this is the place where I belong. In the meantime, I'll be back in New Zealand pumping out the Web 2.0 posts on Web 2.0 Explorer and Read/WriteWeb.
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El Papa! We already miss you and you haven't even actualy left yet. Please come back soon. And I'm excited about the numerous projects we have started on together. Sniff. :-)
Posted by: Michael Arrington | October 14, 2005 7:00 PM
Hey Mate. Have a safe trip back, and look forward to seeing you again soon!
Posted by: Jeff Clavier | October 14, 2005 11:38 PM
Wow, a week+ to remember. Great meeting you and I really hope you find your way back here somehow. Roight roight roight roight!
Posted by: Gabe | October 15, 2005 2:11 AM
Seems a shame to me that in spite of all the wonders of the modern networked world and its increasingly enabled toolbox that a leading proponent of the whole second iteration shooting match feels the need to pack his bags, throw time and place shifting to the wind, and sit face to face with so many others building a vision of the networked future for the rest of us. For every relocation that happens I think this power behind this meme gets weaker. Long live globalisation!
Posted by: Lyle Clarke | October 15, 2005 7:41 AM
Hi Lyle,
I'm all for globalisation, but I've never claimed that web networking will replace face-to-face networking. Remember I've built up my network and reputation over the last few years purely based on writing my blog from NZ and utilising other Internet technologies to overcome the 'tyranny of distance'. The fact that I was able to make it to the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francicso in the first place - is testament to the power of Web networking. I would never have made it but for the Web (and my blog in particular). And then almost everyone I met in SF read or knew about my blog - again hooray for the Web and globalisation!
The fact of the matter is: Silicon Valley is the Home of the Web. That's where most of the action is and why someone like me wants to be there. The F2F networking, the energy and enthusiasm, the sheer history of the place re the Web, and yes the VC money. *That* is what I want to be a part of.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | October 16, 2005 1:32 PM
Hi Richard,
Remember that cartoon "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Dog. It was drawn back in 1993, before Web 1.0 "lost its innocence". Well, I think that is how the web has been since the crash. On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're in NZ, or whereever. I think that has been a strength. Now though, we are entering a new "let's monetize this stuff" phase, and with that it starts to matter more where you are, and with this trend, something that has been a strength of the community at large for the last few years, and brought us to where we are today, is changing. Instead of disconnected people helping themselves and each other building tools to shorten the distance etc. we have something else. That's the shame.
But it's not a crying shame though, just a difference, and I'll live with it. I can totally see where you are coming from and wish you the best for your Silicon Valley adventures. (Also, if it puts any perspective on things, I'm a dislocated kiwi living in Denmark.)
Cheers
Posted by: Lyle Clarke | October 17, 2005 8:40 AM