ecommerce Archives - Graeme Thickins on Tech

The first speaker was Barry Schwartz, psychology professor from Swarthmore College, and author or “The Paradox of Choice,” a book we all got in our conference bag. (One guy who asked a question later said he’s already read it.) Basically, I’ll give you what I got out of his talk and the psycho-babble — I mean discussion — that followed. The Internet gives us too many choices. Check. How can Internet businesses help us? Help narrow our choices. Check. That’s what all the community services, for shopping, tagging, sharing, etc, actually do: as Esther says, filter or constrain our choices, without us having to be be involved in every silly little choice. Check. Therefore community is good, vertical search is good. Check.

Rock on Web 2.0.

(I took a bunch of photos, and I’d share a one or two here, but I can’t decide. No, actually, the Bluetooth in my RAZR phone won’t power on. Hmm, did I make the wrong phone choice?)

Tag: PCforum06
Tag: PCforum

I’m sitting here now in the registration area, just outside the Grand Ballroom, where the first session fires up at in an hour or so. The sun came out full-on on my drive south from San Clemente late this morning, so the weather turned out to be quite nice here at LaCosta (but still cool). People started trickling in about noon, but now they’re filing in more heavily. Many folks, of course, just flew in today, from all over, so they’re just now getting checked into the hotel. Here are some shots I grabbed with my cell phone while I strolled around to check out this sprawling resort a bit. (Excuse the quality of the pix, but I forgot my big camera – duh.) In the first shot, of the registration desk, that’s Daphe Kis, Publisher of Release 1.0 on the right. I also chatted with Esther Dyson, who was greeting many people personally and seems as calm as can be. (Comes with experience, I guess, from doing this conference so many years.) Talking to other attendees here, I already get the idea that PC Forum has a very loyal following, year after year.

(Just click on the photos to make them larger.)

Tag: PCforum06
Tag: PCforum