Future of Web Apps: Day One
Future of Web Apps 2008 kicked off yesterday, and I was there to enjoy the proceedings…
As we arrived to register and pick up our passes, we were treated to a “surprise” courtesy of the crew from Carsonified:
- A Carsonified-branded jute bag — cool, but not sure I’d want to keep my laptop in there due to the total lack of padding.
- A numbered journal, pencil and sharpener — woo!
- A handwritten note from Gill Carson thanking us for attending — pretty nice considering the size of the event.
First we had the introduction from Ryan Carson, and the conference chairs, Simon Willison and Simon Wardley… including an acapella RIck Roll in honour of Ryan’s birthday!
Next up was Kevin Rose on “The Future of News”, which surprisingly didn’t get much of a crowd response. He talked about the ways in which he wants to grow Digg, and improve its relevance to its users. I thought this was pretty much on the money, as I used to be a heavy user of Digg, but got a bit turned off it when they broadened the scope of the site, allowing non-tech content to come in. I felt like it kind of diluted amount of news that was relevant to me. However, Kevin’s talk on the improvements they are making to their recommendation engine and taxonomy seem like they are thinking about exactly the same problem: how do they keep the site relevant to the largest number of users possible, whilst still taking into account people’s niche interests.
Other talks I enjoyed today included Blaine Cook and Joe Stump’s “Languages Don’t Scale” (language choice insignificant, concentrate on IO!); Stefan Fountain’s “Future of Mobile Web”; and the TechCrunch dragon’s den style startup pitches.
Looking forward to today’s sessions, and of course the live filming of Diggnation in the evening! I’ll be tweeting throughout the day (http://twitter.com/jimmahnow), so follow me and keep an eye on the #fowa search trend on twitter!
Future of Web Apps 2008: Looking Ahead
Future of Web Apps 2008
With Future of Web Apps 2008 just under 3 weeks away, I’ve been thinking about the bits I’m most looking forward to.
Day One
- 10:15 - 10:50: Kevin Rose (digg) on the future of news.
- 11:45 - 12:20: Blaine Cook (ex-Twitter) and Joe Stump (digg) - “Languages don’t scale”.
- 12:30 - 12:50: Kevin Marks (Google) on the future of enterprise web apps.
- 14:20 - 14:55: Stefan Fountain (Soocial) - “The future of the mobile web is going to change everything”.
- 17:10 - 17:30: Francisco Tolmasky (280 North) on Building Desktop Calibre Web Apps with Objective-J and Cappuccino.
- 19:30 - 00:00: Party@FOX kindly sponsored by Media Temple (Open Bar… oh dear…).
Day Two
- 10:45 - 10:55: Adam Gross (salesforce.com) on Cloud Computing in the Enterprise.
- 11:35 - 11:55: Chris Messina (Vidoop) on oAuth and Data Portability in your web app.
- 13:50 - 14:25: Beyond Google Maps with Andrew Turner (Mapfacture).
- 14:30 - 15:05: Tony Lucas (XCalibre) and Jeff Barr (AWS) - Cloud Computing (The Imporant Bits).
- 15:45 - 16:15: How to Build a Desktop App for your Web App with Jeremy Baines (Howard Baines).
- 16:45 - 17:00: Make the Web More Social with Facebook Connect - Dave Morin (Facebook).
- 17:20 - 17:50: Fireside chat with Facebook Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
- 19:30 - 20:30: Diggnation!
- 20:30 - 00:00: FOWA wrap party/digg meetup.
I went to the conference last October and it was fantastic, I enjoyed spending a couple of days listening to best and brightest in the industry, and I’m sure it’ll be as good if not better this year! The expo was great last year too (SWAG!) and from the looks of things looks much bigger this time around!
I’ve got my hotel and train tickets booked and can’t wait to be on my way! Is anyone else going, and if so, what are you looking forward to the most?
