by Doug Smith – President, Podango

I have managed eCommerce and online media companies for several years, 6+ years at Franklin Covey and two years as the CEO of a startup. But only now am I beginning to grasp the sub-culture of Web 2.0, the LIVE Web as Doc Searls referred to it in his closing remarks. This “Live” Web was clearly demonstrated throughout the conference by posts appearing on the internet before echoes settled from each speaker’s last words. Steve Gillmor referred to a prior panelist a pinhead not naming him, but the blogs did. On the first day, a lady sitting in front of me was in the state of panic because she could not connect to the web and post her blog. It was like an addict going through a withdrawal (not that I would know). This conference pealed back two layers of the onion for me, but I sense I have several more layers to go. And most of that learning will need to be experiential, so I am blogging and will soon be podcasting. The learning continues.

I entered the conference thinking Google was on the forefront of all new Web innovations. To my surprise a few of the esteemed presenters suggested that they were part of the “Dead” web, focusing their search engines of “static” pages, not highlighting their offerings for searching the Blogosphere or the “Live” web. I learned more about tags, gestures, attention and click streams. I picked up “Naked Conversations” and started reading it on the way home. This is a whole new world and I like what I see. It is a world of “love cats” and open hearted conversation and discussion. But it is only beginning to unfold as demonstrated early this morning on my 6am mountain bike ride with my neighbor and friend who works for Oracle. I asked him, if Oracle executives blog, he asked “what is a blog”? Enough said.