Web 2.0 Expo Buzz – Part 2, Ideas

After leaving a conference my adrenalin is always very high. I’ve taken in so many new ideas in a short period of time that I feel like I’m suffering from information sickness (coined by Don DeLillo in “White Noise”). And yet I am not anxious to see it soon part. I’m eager to incorporate all the data and make sense of it as fast as I can.

So was the case this past week in San Francisco as a fairly broad community gathered for Web 2.0 Expo. Here’s how I’m making sense of it all in 3 parts.

Part 2 – Ideas: here are some memes that were spreading around the conference. 

• OpenID protocol eliminates the need to create a new account on every new site or service you signup for. There are many companies subscribing to this idea including AOL, Yahoo, WordPress, Technocrati, Verisign, France Telecom and the pioneer MyOpenId. Every time you use your OpenId to access a site accepting this protocol, the accepting site redirects you to a verification page. For example if I try to login using “openid.aol.com/Anshu”to Springnote.com, Springnote.com will send a verification request to AOL to confirm that I am really the one accessing the site. Read more at: http://janrain.com/openid/ .

•  Open Social API from Google promises to allow any Web site using it to let apps work on their Web site. In other words the benefit for developers is create your app/widget once and run it across all participating social network platforms. It’s very early (released late last year with fanfare and much commentary) but spreading so rapidly that it’s worth keeping up wiht. See this presentation on implementation by Hi5: http://en.oreilly.com/webexsf2008/public/asset/attachment/2291

•  Twitter is being used in some very interesting ways. One moderator asked the audience to twitter (or is it “tweet”?) him questions for the panel or comments and many did which he then put up on the giant presentation screens. Two other presenters spoke about how Twitter is helping consumers (Comcast, T-mobile) organize and get better customer service. Read more: http://getsatisfaction.com/tmobile/topics/t_mobile_shuts_down_twitter_service_for_good