For some reason, the 2007 Web 2.0 Summit has been harder for me to analyze than the previous 3 events. I think it's partly because I spent less time this year in the sessions and workshops - this time I roamed around the conference center and did lots of meetings. But also it was difficult to identify an over-riding theme to this conference.

Web 2.0 Conferences 2005-06

To quickly re-cap my thoughts on the previous conferences:

• The 2004 conference, which I attended virtually, was the awakening of a new Web era. Tim O'Reilly and his team defined this as Web 2.0.
• The 2005 conference was all about the excitement of new web startups making an impact on the Internet again, for the first time since the dot com era. At the same time people were wary about how the dot com era ended, so it wasn't the "irrational exuberance" of the previous era. I termed the mood at this event "cautious optimism and cynical buzz".
• The 2006 conference was re-named Web 2.0 Summit and had a much bigger business focus than the previous year - I noted that "the crowd was overwhelmingly from the media and business worlds." I also wrote that the 2006 conference was less cutting edge and lacked a creative vibe. However there was an over-riding theme to it: Web technologies were maturing. Things like Amazon's web services initiatives, desktop/web integration, big media using the Web, and more.
• The Web 2.0 Expo in April 2007 was a lot bigger than the previous two, in terms of audience. It also had the developer and designer crowd in attendance, which helped bring some of the excitement back. The Expo Hall, teeming with startups and big tech companies alike, was the highlight. My over-riding impression was: Web 2.0 goes mainstream.

So there has been a progression over the past couple of years:

• Oct '04: Web 2.0 is Born
• Oct '05: Web 2.0 Tips (a.k.a. "cautious optimism and cynical buzz")
• Nov '06: Web 2.0 Matures
• Apr '06: Web 2.0 Goes Mainstream

Reviewing the 2007 Web 2.0 Summit

And now we come to the 2007 Web 2.0 Summit -- but this one is harder to to define. For a start, the cutting edge was even further away from the Summit than it was in 2006. The main themes that I picked up during this conference were:

• Social networking (especially Facebook); and
• The iPhone - which was seemingly carried by at least 1 out of every 2 conference participants.

Two interesting trends to be sure, but not the cutting edge of web technology.

However, one innovative new product type did make an appearance later in the conference: semantic apps. Twine announced itself during the Summit, and we saw on stage two startups that have been in varying stages of stealth for the past year or so: Freeweb and Powerset. So it was good to see semantic apps 'bubbling up' (obligatory use of the word 'bubble', just for Josh Kopelman).

Something was missing in the Web 2.0 Summit in 2007. The excitement factor wasn't quite there. Content-wise, discussing Facebook's valuation and the latest AT&T regulations weren't very interesting from a technology perspective. Marc Canter did his best to liven things up, asking both Facebook and MySpace's leaders to open up their social network properties. But even Marc couldn't elicit meaningful responses from either Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (who frankly looked like a young deer trapped in headlights) or the Batman and Robin big media duo of Rupert Murdoch and Chris DeWolfe.

As for the social activity at the Web 2.0 Summit, it too didn't quite register on the excitement meter. Last year we got Lou Reed, somewhat grizzled at how fate (or his AOL kung-fu buddy Jonathan Miller) had reduced him to performing to rich Internet folks. OK, Lou sold out - but it was awesome! This year however there was no Jonathan Miller to save the day. Indeed the main party wasn't even hosted by Web 2.0 Summit. It was by MySpace and it basically threw together two different worlds: awkward looking geeks mixing with far-too-hip media people.

Who let these geeks in? At the MySpace party, from left to right: Prashant Agarwal, Richard MacManus, Sean Ammirati

Conclusion: Steady As She Goes

After much earnest reflection, I think this year's Web 2.0 Summit can be described as: Steady As She Goes. Nothing much had changed from last year's Summit - even Tim O'Reilly's attire of brown trousers/jacket and scratchy beard was the same as last year. No, this Web 2.0 thing is here to stay for a couple more years yet - Mary Meeker's data and charts still show web 2.0 in the black, John Battelle's questions are still incisive, Tim O'Reilly is still at the top of his analytical game (web 2.0 and financial markets was his new theme this year). It's steady as she goes.

There was a hint of disruption with the Semantic Apps startups, muscling onto the scene with their talk of "web 3.0". But in the end, it wasn't enough to usurp the defining question of this conference: when will Facebook "bring in a grown-up"? (which Battelle asked Zuckerberg at the end of their session).

Hey, perhaps next year we can get Jack White and The Raconteurs to perform at the event?

Photos: Brian Solis

Freebase

Daniel Hillis starts with a demo of Freebase, which aims to "open up the silos of data and the connections between them". Freebase is a database that has all kinds of data in it and an API. He shows a wagon wheel like UI of VCs, centered around John Doerr. He says it is basically objects and relationships between them. Because it's an open database, anyone can enter new data in Freebase. An example page in the Freebase db looks pretty similar to a Wikipedia page (or a Twine page). When you enter new data, the app can make suggestions about content. The topics in Freebase are organized by type, and you can connect pages with links, semantic tagging. So in summary, Freebase is all about shared data and what you can do with it.

Barney Pell is up next. Powerset (see our coverage here and here) is a natural language search engine. He says the system relies on semantic technologies that have only become available in the last few years. He says that Powerset has imported Freebase, to improve the database. He says the system can make "semantic connections", which helps make the semantic database. He uses the example of Hulk Hogan and the list of wrestlers he's defeated (Ric Flair, Randy Savage, et al). He says these connections comes from "the way the language is expressed". He says that meaning and knowledge gets extracted automatically from Powerset.

Twine

Nova Spivack is up next, regarding Twine. Our review yesterday covers this. Nova Spivack notes today that Twine automatically learns about you and your interests as you populate it with content - the "Semantic Graph". When you put in new data, Twine picks out and tags certain content with semantic tags - e.g. the name of a person. He says that an important point is that Twine creates new semantic and rich data. But it's not all user-generated. They've also done machine learning against Wikipedia to 'learn' about new concepts. And they will eventually tie into services like Freebase. Finally he compares Twine to Google, saying it is a "bottom-up, user generated crawl of the Web".

Panel Talk

Tim O'Reilly starts by asking whether all of these Semantic Web apps are available now? Hillis firstly notes that some of this technology is not necessarily Semantic Web. But to Tim's question, Hillis says Freebase is "solid alpha". Powerset has about 16,000 people already signed up, and you can sign up now. Twine "is usable today", but it's still in learning and testing phase. Spivack says it's now an "invite beta".

Tim then says that what ties these apps together is "semantics" (not necessarily Semantic Web, as Hillis noted). O'Reilly brings up Google, Flickr interestingness and how users can influence results (collective intelligence etc), but that it's usually passive and hidden behind silos. But these new semantic apps are more open and they're platform players. Hillis says that O'Reilly is on track, and eventually "there will be one Web of data". He says Web 1.0 was a "web of documents", and that it will be the same with semantic apps - it doesn't make sense to have silos of data.

Nova said this is the value of open standards and the WC3. He says the Semantic Web is a certain set of standards, and that it where you get the (open) network effect. Barney says the real value is "making explicit what was once implicit" (in terms of data).

Tim asks: where is the interoperability within the 3 platforms (3 apps above). Hillis said Freebase is a platform because it's specifically designed to be used by other apps.

In summary, Spivack notes that data portability and connectibility is the key to these new semantic apps - the Web is the platform and they're just different services within the platform. Hillis though disagrees - he said Freebase is a platform! So the web is the platform of platforms (!).

On that overly semantic note, the panel ended.

Related: Web 3.0: When Web Sites Become Web Services, by Alex Iskold, which is a great overview of this new era of Semantic apps.

Some quick thoughts on Web 2.0 Summit this year from my experience: similar to last year, business focus, Facebook is the hottest topic, there are iPhones everywhere. There aren't that many new startup ventures around, although Nova Spivack's Twine is promising. Overall the show hasn't been as interesting to me as Web 2.0 Expo was in April, but it is a different audience (Expo is more geek focused). I'll wrap up my thoughts on the Summit later today. Meanwhile here is the video:

Along with the usual trends such as mobile uptake and China growth (which are present in all Meeker presentations at Web 2.0), here are some of the lesser known trends that I learned about:

We're now in two cycles in the "Cloud" age - broadband and wireless. This is seen in new products like Apple iPhone, 3 Skype Phone, Amazon Kindle, the upcoming Google ‘GPhone’. Also Meeker noted that there will be a "critical mass inflection point" for 3G in 2009. Meeker predicts a "new generation of Internet leaders to capitalize on growing access to fast Internet access on mobiles".

Some interesting data points this year about the growth in Enterprise web 2.0. Slide 12 notes that the "next wave of corporate productivity gains should be paced by Web 2.0 driven collaboration tools that use the network as the platform to enable users to connect ‘any device to any content over any combination of networks’ (John Chambers, CEO, Cisco Systems, 5/22/07)". Related to this, enterprises may be coming out of a "relative purchasing funk" (slide 13).

The following slide regarding Internet trends is worth highlighting in its entirity:

Also check out this slide highlighting international Web trends:

Personalization and recommendation systems are trends we discuss a lot here on Read/WriteWeb. Meeker called this out nicely in a slide about Amazon.com, a company that puts a lot of this theory into successful practise:

Other great data points include: strong growth in online music (sales up 107% over the past year); Skype/VoIP growing near 100% per annum too; there is a "battle for platforms" in social networking, advertising, payments, commerce and mobile devices (Meeker described this one as a "rugby scrum").

Finally Meeker referenced a group of Internet companies, including YouTube, digg, Joost. The most interesting one of course this year is Facebook, which Meeker said had experienced extraordinary growth over the past year:

Meeker noted that Zuckerberg was 11 when Netscape did its IPO and wasn't born when microsoft went public, but Meeker said that Zuckerberg "thinks differently and we think that's a good thing".

Overall, some fantastic data points as usual. Let us know in the comments what you think of these trends and what in particular interests you. For me, it is the different kinds of web tech products we are seeing coming from (and for) the International market. Plus the new kinds of Web apps for mobile devices. These are things we will explore more on R/WW.

Battelle asked about the Facebook platform. Zuckerberg said that "it's incredibly humbling to see all these people build on top of a platform that's still early stage". He said it might take "tens of years" before the platform is mature, so launching the platform this year was a "quick start" (i.e. they just wanted to get it out there and iterate). Battelle asked how can developers be sure that their apps won't be taken offline in the future? Zuckerberg said that the site is evolving very fast, so they need to make sure there's enough flexibility in the system. That didn't answer the question, so Battelle persisted with the topic - noting that Microsoft essentially built a platform too, but they went on to "colonize" it. So will Facebook do the same? Zuckerberg said maybe with ads (!) He said that Facebook "reserves the right to build apps on the platform".

Battelle asked: what about media? Zuckerberg said "we're not really a media company", so it's unlikely they'll build media apps. He said they'll stick to social networking functionality.

Later, Marc Canter got in the first question - he asked will Facebook release APIs that allow users to export their social graph and other personal data. Marc says Facebook isn't "all the way open" - will that change? Zuckerberg says "we want to get there" and that's their goal. He cited how FB started off just being for US college studemts, then opened up to world, then to the platform for apps inside FB. He says "we realize this is a flaw in the system", but he didn't give a timeframe (despite Marc's questions around exactly that).

Charlene Li asked: many of the FB apps today are "frivalous", so is Mark happy about that? Zuckerberg reiterated that it's still very early, but that many verticals have been filled in already. He says it's amazing to him that they have 6000 apps already. The other part of Li's question was what kind of apps does he want built? Zuckerberg said that he hopes more apps that go outside personal and social media will be built - e.g. health.

Battelle's last question is "at some time or another you've got to bring in a grown-up", so will FB do that? Zuckerberg says they're focusing on "building a really good team" (great side-step!).