Just got an email from Esther that she’s discontinuing the annual PC Forum conference. Wow, what a bummer… Such a great, long-standing industry event. She leaves a huge legacy. But she goes out in style, after an excellent conference this past March, which I was lucky enough to catch. 
Here’s the terse email she sent to those of us on her Release 1.0 list: “Word has slowly gotten out that the PC Forum last March was the last ever. So let me interview myself.” And a link then takes us here (requires registration), where she explains her decision. It’s all quite upbeat and positive, but it still comes as a shocker. Few individuals command as much respect in this industry as Esther. She’s one of a kind, that is for sure! And many, many people will miss her annual event. She built up a huge fan base and following over the years, and attracted the very finest speakers. 
Here’s a rundown of those speakers through 2005. For more about the swan-song event in March 2006, read my coverage here. Esther launched her conference near the dawn of the PC revolution, about the time I was going off on my own as an independent consultant, and I’ve followed her all this time, as has the entire technology industry. But, as she reminds us in her self-interview above, she’s not done yet! I know we’ll be hearing much more from her…. Good luck, Esther!
Tag: PC Forum
BusinessWeek reported a possible interesting development in a story it published April 14: “Microsoft is in talks to buy or forge a partnership with two-year-old startup Eurekster.com, specializing in social-network search, BusinessWeek Online has learned from people familiar with the matter. A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.”
BusinessWeek said one of the many ways that search sites, MSN included, are trying to set themselves apart is with social search, “a targeted pursuit of information that’s influenced by the preferences of a person’s peer group.” It’s a method whose time has come, according to BW.
The piece quoted Eurekster CEO Steve Marder, the subject of an interview I did at PC Forum (see my previous post): “If our technology were in the hands of one of [the search engines or a huge media company], it would be a competitive advantage.” BusinessWeek added that he would only say his firm is negotiating potential partnerships with a number of portals and media companies.
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?)
I’m happy to tell you I’ll be blogging from PC Forum, March 12-14, at the LaCosta Resort in Carlsbad, CA. This is the very well-regarded event hosted annually by Esther Dyson of Release 1.0 fame. And its timing this year is impeccable — for lots of reasons. The list of speakers and presenters is impressive. Watch for lots more here, including some pre-conference posts soon….
Tag: PCforum2006
Tag: PCforum
One word: Edgeio…or should I say EdgeIO…or edgeIO…or is it edgeio? [Seems to be upper and lowercase challenged.] But it’s all the rage in the blog-o-spherical world lately because somebody said it’s an “Ebay Killer.” No wonder Michael Arrington (the TechCrunch guy) didn’t return my email — he’s been, uh, a little busy lately? And no wonder he didn’t sit in on the presentations at DEMO, but just hung out in the press room. Now we know why! He’s hyping his new play, teamed up with old buddy Keith Teare from RealNames. You’ll remember that as a Web 1.0 company that was going to change everything, but … didn’t … quite … make … it.
Lots of talk out there about this one, and why or why not it will be the next big thing. Whatever, it’s really early-on at this point…. Though they plan to pitch the company formally at one of the next big, buzzy conferences: Esther Dyson’s PC Forum next month at LaCosta (Carlsbad, CA).
Tag: Edgeio
Tag: PCforum2006
Tag: PCforum
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