Tag : strategy and business models

What is accessibility in terms of Web 2.0? Although many may have heard of web standards or even particular aspects of accessibility such as alternative text or large fonts, most people will have only a vague notion of what accessibility is really about.

The presentations will show the impact of Web 2.0 developments on Web accessibility and introduce a test by disabled and disadvantaged people for the social and commercial area named "BAFIN-Test Side by Side".

Martin Stehle and Jan Eric Hellbusch will take a closer look to both the social part and the technical part of Web 2.0 possibilities and show the challenges in future.

In the first part of the presentation they will discuss social aspects, user needs and legal issues. There will be demonstrations of inaccessible applications and particular aspects will be discussed considered in the context of workflow.

In the second part Stehle and Hellbusch will introduce the “BAFIN-Test Seite an Seite" (“BAFIN Test Side by Side") with the option to pass the test with a three-level distinction. Web accessibility is a potential business area in consideration of the growing population of older citizens and the increasing number of new web devices.

Speakers :
-- Martin Stehle
-- Jan Eric Hellbusch

This panel will cover the shifts and moves in the whole traditonal media landscape and the role the Web played/ plays in that changing media landscape.

It will begin with short presentations of the results of the three newspaper-surveys done by Luca Conti (Italy), Robin Hamman (UK) and Steffen Bueffel (Germany). All three analyses have been inspired by the Binvings Groups 2006 study of "The Use of the Internet by America’s Newspapers".

The discussion portion dive into the following trends: Decline in circulation, reach of (young) audience(s). Ad revenues shifting towards the Web, new big players on the scene (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc.), Web 2.0 and Social Media (Bloggers, Podcasters etc.)

As a sneak peak here is some data from the 2006 German study on the use of interactive and "web2.0-like" features of Germany's Newspapers. They took the 100 most read papers based on circulation. In ( ) they have included our guess on what will change in the follow study of this year (- = decline, + increase).
* Message board: 49% ( - or no significant change)
* RSS-Feeds: 43% (+*)
* Videos: 37% (+++)
* RSS (Categories): 36% (+)
* Reporter Blogs: 21% (+)
* ... with comments enabled: 19% (+)
* Chat: 14% (- or no significant change
* Reader-comments on news stories: 10% (+++)
* Blogroll: 9% (+)
* Podcasts: 8% (++)
* Registration: 8% (+)
* RSS-Feeds (full story): 5% (no significant change)
* "most read": 5% (+)
* Social Bookmarking: 0% (+)

Speakers :
-- Igor Schwarzmann
-- Sam Sethi
-- Falk Lueke
-- Robin Hamman
-- Luca Conti
-- Steffen Bueffel

With the launch of the iPhone, the Telecoms industry enters a new and a disruptive phase - the drivers of which are no longer the traditional players in the industry.

This session explores the synergies between the web and the Telecoms industry.

It outlines the opportunities and the disruptive influences of the Web on the Telecoms industry.

Traditionally the Web and the ethos of the web (open standards, interoperability, etc.) are viewed with suspicion by the telecoms industry. The Telecoms industry in general, does not trust the Web. It is almost as if it chooses to ignore the 'Web' in 'Mobile Web 2.0'.

But the Web forms the bedrock of Tim O'Reilly’s seven principles defining Web 2.0 and it is not possible to ignore the Web any more - especially considering the rapid growth of User generated content.

Unless it adapts to the web, the industry risks missing out on the huge opportunities that can be leveraged through the power of Mobile Web 2.0.

This session talks about the Good, the bad and the ugly - in the interplay between the web and Telecoms.

Speakers :
-- Ajit Jaokar
-- Tony Fish

Data is a hot business. The recent acquisitions of NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas highlight that fact. “Data” is typically produced by specialized groups of people, producing data that is used for specific and explicit purposes.

Web 2.0 has also brought about 2 major trends here - the first is the concept of peer production, where groups of seemingly unrelated people conscientiously come together to collaborate on producing specific data, with Wikipedia being the prime example.

An example is Payscale, a website where people can contribute their own pay scale data in order to receive the aggregated data of people in their domain.

The second trend is about the emergence of implicit data which are much more than mere behavior trails, but are actually much more accurate proxies of the user's attention, ranging from intention data (search), attention data (tagging and voting), location data (GPS), to interaction data (between users on a social network).

As the complexity of production, aggregation, distribution, and terms of data consumption gets more complicated, what are the challenges facing companies seeking to manage this complexity? How will people expect to be paid for their data? Money? Attention? Quid pro quo? How can organizations process data, insights and actions iteratively through the constant use of experiments?

Speakers :
-- Andreas Weigend
-- Jonathan Laventhol

Google's commercial success is based on the idea of identifying a variety of factors, from text analysis to human interest, and use them as variables in a giant mathematical equation that generates billions of revenue, widely known as AdSense. But how would a traditional corporation look like when it'd work like AdSense? Will we offshore intelligence to machines? What are the opportunities and threats? What happens when the whole world, from culture to politics become financial markets driven by algorithms?

A joint state-of-the-art review of a new breed of businesses relying on mathematical models, potential scenarios how this approach will become mainstream and what this might mean to you and your business.

Speakers :
-- Dirk Baecker
-- Tom Fuerstner
-- Jean-Paul Schmetz
-- Sean Park

America created laws that protected firms that were in the selling-information business even as the rapid spread of IT made it easier and easier to copy anything represented as zeros and ones. It's a bad bet, something like betting on the blacksmiths to beat the automobiles.

Now Europe is following America's lead with a series of legislative and normative initiatives that criminalize entire sectors of the IT industry, reducing the Union's competitiveness just as China is ramping up to swallow the world's entire manufacturing and service industry.

Europe doesn't need to do this - it has already turned its back on software patents and can go further, by refusing to let America's ailing entertainment industries drive its continental policy.

New Europe is not only Eastern European countries who joined EU (recently Bulgaria and Romania) but the term comprises the emerging part of Europe increasingly gravitating towards the West which includes former Yugoslav countries (Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro), Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova..with a total population of nearly 200m.

It is a very vibrant and dynamic economic and social environment; after years of political and cultural hegemony, the new generation is starving for freedom to create and decide on the future on their own.

Hence, opposite to Western Europe, New Europe is producing world-class engineers and innovators, especially in high-tech and internet. Skype (Estonia), LogMeIn (Hungary), and many others...The iPhone first-ever hack considered mission impossible was done by a Macedonian.

And now New Europe is experiencing strong growth, especially in media and IT: - massive growth in internet penetration in general and broadband in particular; many countries are leapfrogging to state-of-the-art infrastructure (i.e. Macedonia might become the 1st WiMax 100% covered country in the world, the world's first national wireless broadband network.

The Macedonia Connects Project, a program designed to provide the entire country with affordable high-speed wireless connectivity) - strong economic growth as GDP per capita levels tend to EU norms; - increasing advertising spend in these markets as disposable incomes increase; and - a wholesale shift in the structure of the advertising market as advertisers move from traditional media to online media. This panel will examine the climate and opportunities of this market.

As Web 2.0 is now a global phenomenon, its powerful concepts find their applications everywhere around the world. What primarily started as a trend among U.S. startups quickly spread to other continents where entrepreneurs recognized the potentials and were quicker than their role models to localize and launch similar companies.

Whether you agree or disagree with this trend, it certainly can't be ignored. So what are the lessons and what does localization mean in Web 2.0 terms? How do Web 2.0 applications differ internationally and where is there innovation?

Using an extensive series of examples, this talk will cover what European, Asian and American companies have learned, invented and adjusted when making Web 2.0 a global/local phenomenon.

Is the legal framework in Europe ready for Web 2.0? How are Web 2.0 Services liable for user generated content? How does the legal framework and legal risks affect business models?

Learn about the evaluation and the development of the European legal framework for internet and media. Get informed about legal risks and how to avoid them in Web 2.0.

Utility computing takes the ideas of utility energy provision and applies it to the world of IT, so that companies buy computing resources in much the same way that they buy electricity - charged according to metered usage. This market is growing, and will continue to grow in three distinct areas - SaaS, FaaS and HaaS.

It heralds in a new way of operating on the web, benefiting developers by reducing "yak shaving", business by reducing non-strategic costs and it may even benefit Ducks.

This session covers the concepts, economics, technologies, players, benefits and pitfalls as well as the future development of this field. It also explains what this might mean to those who work in IT, how the relationship between IT and Business will change, how new markets should form and why Ducks matter.

Make traffic, not money - that seems to be the mantra of many Web 2.0 sites. Yet, as many VC-backed companies start to explore exit opportunities, successful execution of the business model is key.

So how do you translate consumer adoption into hard dollars? Network effects are probably the single most important driver for the remarkable success of Web 2.0 properties...can these be used to fuel the revenue generation engine, and how?

Are the low CPM troubles of social networks a sign that advertising is not the solution? And what kind of content do consumers actually pay for? Where are the trade-offs between the different models?

These and other questions will be answered, along with a look at the current market situation and the future of monetization on the web.

Self-organizing teams, transparency, and leaderless organizations have captured the imagination of the business community, but the paradigm of traditional hierarchy still dominates. What seems to hold us back are the huge unknowns of change: what happens when you restructure around these new principles?

This session describes CoreMedia's adventures in tossing out their organizational chart, redefining roles and teams, and decentralizing decision-making. They have defined personnel and technical management as discrete areas, and all staff members are assigned to one of the three Competence Centers. The directors of these centers give staff regular feedback, foster personal development, manage the career models and also oversee the assignment of staff to projects based on their specialist skills. Projects themselves are offered as "invitations to tender" and in regular "Waterhole meetings" any member of the staff can present an idea to work on. These are just a few examples of the structures of this self-organized company. They've made some bold moves and have real-world results to share with you. But one result upfront - creativity has boosted throughout the company.

The second part of the session is an open discussion with attendees about what has worked in other organizations and the challenges and benefits of evolving and/or revolutionizing your organization. Attendees will receive the results of research on Enterprise 2.0 acceptance, challenges and tools in German companies.

Additional Speaker : Nicole Dufft

You've got a hot idea, but where do you go from there? How should you organize the company and get funding?

Reshma Sohoni and Saul Klein fresh off their first seedcamp are going to share their experiences and knowledge. They'll also bring in some of the advisors and veterans of Seedcamp such as Founders’ Link, Oliver J and Lukasz G, Samwers, Klaus H, Jane H. F., Christoph Maire, Eric Wahlforss, Alexander Ljung, Target Partners, Neuhaus, EarlybirdCapital, Max at Atlas, 3i, Doughty Hanson.

In the session will begin with some Seedcamp companies sharing their experience of forming companies.

Following there will be a panel of Angels, VCs, and Seedcamp mentors talking about getting a team together to develop an idea, developing the product, and the right stages of getting funding. Q&A to follow. The tutorial will end with small group breakout sessions.

Speakers :
-- Saul Klein
-- Oren Michels
-- Reshma Sohoni
-- Lukasz Gadowski
-- Maximilian Niederhofer
-- Gerald Heydenreich
-- Felix Petersen
-- Christophe Maire
-- Klaus Hommels
-- Oliver Jung
-- Paul Jozefak
-- Oliver Beste
-- Stefan Tirtey
-- Fabian Hansmann
-- Olivier Schuepbach
-- Stefan Glaenzer
-- Gayathri Radhakrishnan
-- Bjoern Baehre
-- Eric Wahlforss

After five years of working with major telecoms and media companies to understand where to play and how to win in a business environment that seems to re-invent itself every few months, we've come to learn what separates the companies that succeed in the networked economy from those that have been left in its wake.

The key to identifying the strategies and business models that withstand the next wave of disruptive hype requires getting honest about the real assets you bring to the table and finding ways to work with the network instead of fighting the changes it represents. This means explicitly changing the way you work and collaborate to set direction, scope opportunity, and build capabilities to rapidly assess business changes and react to them ... or choose not to react.

Whether you're from a large corporation or a consultancy (or even a start-up still searching for a business model), this workshop will provide new frameworks and mindsets that you can immediately put to use to understand your opportunities in a web2.0 world.