One thing is certain: Esther Dyson and her organization, Release 1.0 (now part of CNet Networks), know how to plan an event. The PC Forum conference is the venerable high-level tech event of the year, and the most long-standing one, with a history measured in decades. It never lets down. And the big players come out, bigtime. The theme of this year’s event — “Erosion of Power: Users In Charge” — couldn’t be better timed. Without a doubt, it is a developing reality today in the technology business, and well deserving of spirited discussion by the many big thinkers and doers who will gather in Carlsbad, California, March 12-14, to sort out the implications for all of us.
Lots of buzz will be happening in and around this event, and the 400+ lucky attendees will especially be the beneficiaries. [Registration is still open, by the way, so if you want to get the full-on buzz, live and in-person, get over there now and click.] I’ll be blogging lots about PC Forum over the next couple of weeks, and I’m really looking forward to reporting from the event. Watch for an interview of Esther Dyson in my next post for some special insight into what you can expect.
What kind of an event is it? Officially, it’s a three-day executive-level, business-oriented conference “focused on emerging technologies and business models in software, the Internet, communications, and electronic commerce.” In the mornings, general sessions are moderated by Esther Dyson and deal with key issues and trends that her organization, Release 1.0, have identified throughout the year. [Esther is constantly on the go, traveling worldwide to meet with an amazing array of established industry players and new, emerging ones.] In the afternoons come the company presentations (which I’m particularly jazzed about), where startup companies tout their wares, many of them debuting at the event. Some of the companies in past years that either had their coming-out party at PC Forum or made very early appearances to the world include Flickr, IronPort, Technorati, Emode (Tickle), Groxis, KnowNow, Junglee, Mirabilis (ICQ), Eurekster, and JotSpot. Some are even pre-debut, as will be Brightcove this year. [Can you say “disruptor”?] In fact, according to Business 2.0, which wants to dispense with the over-used term Web 2.0 and replace it with the concept of “The Next Net,” cites several PC Forum presenters, past and present, in its just-published Next Net 25 list. [Great stuff.]
So what are some of the specifics of this year’s PC Forum 2006? Here’s a quick rundown, and I’ll be expanding in coming posts.
The morning general sessions. Esther will kick things off on Monday by moderating two panels that deal with individuals as consumers being in charge of data about themselves. The first will focus on how consumers can manage and even sell our own data; the second, on how marketing companies are using behavioral targeting. Then, something different: a panel on health care, which Esther says will take “institutional muscle to change anything,” with the key institution being employers. Then, in Tuesday morning’s general sessions, Bill Joy (a founder of Sun and now a partner at Kleiner Perkins) talks about “big swings at big problems” — water and energy. Yes, KP is still trying to change the world, but in ways you may not have thought, and Bill says he’s more excited than ever. Following this, a panel on peer-to-peer security will look at how individuals can get empowered to protect themselves. But, wait, there’s more (hope there’s time for a bathroom break): two panels on business models, the first focusing on the shift of power to the edges — featuring the CEOs of Salesforce.com, Brightcove, and Augmentum, and the VP of tech strategy at Microsoft; and the second on (what else) search — in which the business models are going to domain-specific information services (so-called vertical search) — as in Zillow…and, yes, our old friend, personalization — as in Yahoo’s community services. Wow, will my notebook be bursting after these.
The afternoon sessions. As if the morning sessions aren’t enough, I get really excited about what happens next (startup guy that I am), because it includes the company presentations. Many of these firms are being introduced for the first time at PC Forum. Here’s the list, with a snippet on each:
Search:
• Healthline – leveraging a deep medical taxonomy.
• Illumio (still pre-launch) – bringing knowledge search to social networks.
• Kosmix – categorizing search.
New Business Models:
• Edgeio – online classifieds via RSS and tagging.
• invisibleCRM – adding Outlook front-ends to enterprise apps.
• Spot Runner – making TV advertising possible for the little guy.
Access & Control:
• Iovation – a reputation system for devices.
• Novatium Solutions – a $100 PC with the guts of a cell phone.
• Site Advisor – addressing the human side of consumer security on the web.
But the Tuesday afternoon session also includes two great roundtable discussions. The first, on the accountable Net, looks at the interacting concepts of trust, reputation, and identity. And the second Esther calls “Me Media”, which deals with the proliferation of platforms and models of user-generated content — blogs, tags, video, long-tail advertising. What’s fad, what’s lasting? And are there any viable business models in this space? I’m looking forward to this one, as the founders of Wink, Dabble, and Tremor Media lead the discussion. Finally, the dinner panel on Tuesday is called “New Forms of Life” and deals with online community, featuring the CEOs
of LinkedIn and Facebook, and a representative of still-stealthy Seriosity. The notion is that online life isn’t “virtual” anymore — it’s just another form of life, along with work and play.
PC Forum is also featuring a group of very interesting “gallery companies” including Bitty Browser, imeem, Kalat Software, Movo Mobile, and Riya (the latter one of my favs from Demo)….”reflecting the wonderfully diverse instantiations of creativity possible on the user-empowered Web,” says Release 1.0. More soon…
a little update: Doc Searls linked to this and had some interesting things to say about users in charge…he told me he’s bummed he can’t be at PC Forum this year, but had committed to speak at another conference
g