Did you hear the Web 2.0 Conference kicking off today in SF just changed names to the “Web 2.0 Summit”? 
That’s to sufficently differentiate it from the “Web 2.0 Expo,” dontcha know — which debuts next spring (and will also be produced by O’Reilly Media and CMP).
Harkens me back to the days of the former “Internet Summits” of the late ’90s, produced by The Industry Standard and hosted by John Battelle — same cohost as this week’s conference. I was reminded of those heady events when I saw a guy quoted yesterday in the WSJ who was one of the many good people I met at those awesome Summit events that Battelle produced. That was Peter Cobb of eBags, which is one of the better e-commerce survivors from the dot-com era; he was part of the very interesting story on Google’s newspaper advertising test. Rock on, Peter!
Those dot-com era Summits were a $4000 ticket, not this week’s bargain(?) $3000 tab. [That must mean it’s not a bubble yet?… 🙂 ] But don’t try to buy a ticket to the Web 2.0 Summit — every VC and recepient of VC from here to China sucked those up quite a while ago. [Yes, just like the pre-bubble days.] Your best bet (only bet?) is to watch for some of the breathless blogging that will be emanating from The Palace Hotel for the next few days. Or else just hang out in the lobby. [My friend Steve Borsch secured a pass and will be one of those capturing some of the action on site. But just type “web2con” into any search box you can find, and you’ll have way more to read than you can handle.] Myself, I’m at a private Sony event in LA the next few days, and will only have time to take a glimpse of the online action occasionally during downtimes.
Meanwhile, Elsewhere in Conference-Land
An event that I wished I could have taken in last week was Startup Camp in Mountain View, sponsored by Sun. Looks like it drew 400 attendees, who are listed here.
I also heard from my former Conferenza editor in SF, the intrepid Gary Bolles, that another one of the MuniWireless events he helps produce, this one right here in Minneapolis in recent weeks, was a big success. He said they had some 300 attendees and three of our local mayors spoke, including tech-savvy R.T. Rybak of Minneapolis (a former Internet consultant, I kid you not).
Did I mention conferences are a booming business again? 🙂
Okay, so next week, since I was planning to stay in SoCal this coming weekend, anyway, I decided to catch a big “Travel 2.0” conference. The pitch: “Now in its 13th year, this event will cast a Hollywood-style spotlight on the world’s largest industry as ‘Travel 2.0 Confronts the Establishment’.” Yikes! They asked Minneapolis’ Rob Metcalf of Flyspy to speak, so I can’t miss that. Mr. Disrupto. I’ll be posting from there as much as I can, assuming they’ll have enough WiFi bandwidth to go around. It’s a jam-packed agenda, with lots of big hitters in the travel space, old and new, speaking. From the looks of the registration list, this one will top out at some 800 attendees and close to 50 press.
Ah, yes, Internet conferences — I love ’em! Watch for more, right here…
Tags: Web 2.0 Summit, O’Reilly Media, John Battelle, CMP, Tim O’Reilly, PhocusWright Conference, Travel 2.0
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