[feedback20] Last feedback entries tagged with conference sessions

"Great after effect!" by Lars Hemmingsen

Lars Hemmingsen — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:06:36 GMT

After having attended 4 days and 17 sessions I lefted this years event with a bit of scepticism... like in a vacuum. But after a few days and after having shared my learnings, inspirations and my outlook from the conference with friends, colleagues and likeminded, I've found some of the value-for-money I'd hoped for.
It's when you do your storytelling based on your experiences that it becomes clearer to see the perspective of the great power this media represents.
It can be expensive and hard work to climb a mountain, and it's not before you stop and take a view you know why you're doing it...

"Company representatives buzz off!" by Lars Hemmingsen

Lars Hemmingsen — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:43:54 GMT

As a web marketing manager representing a large international manufacturing company I was quite surprised to meet several speakers and sessions only addressing or appreciating Entrepreneurs, VCs and Journalists. I spoke to at least 3-4 others who was left with the same impression.
An idea for the next Expo event could be to make sessions and key notes targeted directly to the attending segments. After all that's what Web 2.0 is all about... listen to the masses and give them what they demand.

"Programming Herd Behavior" by vangelis tsoumenis

vangelis tsoumenis — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:12:40 GMT

A topic that i expected to be big at the conference but didn't see at all was the problem of getting benefit out of data-mining vs. pushing herd behavior.

Will the users behavior be negatively influenced by early published results from data-minined peer-data?

Tim O'Reilly blogged about this in context of the inbreeding techrcruch-top-bloggers.

What are techniques to avoid this?

Where was the discussion about this?

"Privacy" by vangelis tsoumenis

vangelis tsoumenis — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 09:38:02 GMT

i think that privacy and data-security was vastly underrepresented at the conference.

How can we keep the users confidential data secure?

What to do to minimize problems for the users that gave us their data in case of a security breach?

Web2.0 companies are trusted with a lot of data from a lot of people and should show some foresight by thinking about problems that could arise from that.

"Keep it simple? Please don't!" by Kathrin Grannemann

Kathrin Grannemann — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 11:37:53 GMT

I'm not gonna talk about a certain session, but want to give an overall feedback. I've only attended a few sessions and workshops, but over all it seemed a little too basic sometimes. Some speakers used up a lot of time to explain basic things like "What is Web 2.0", something that should be basic knowledge for people attending a Web 2.0 Expo.

Especially compared to the BarCamp taking place the weekend before W2EB some sessions were not made for specialists, but more or less for people who want to get an insight of what all this Web 2.0 is all about. I want to point out that this is just my opinion as someone who spends a lof of time with 2.0 stuff.

"Overall a very informative event" by Joel Lundgren

Joel Lundgren — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:52:44 GMT

Thank you for an interesting event. Some sessions were not as good as others but overall the conference was great, especially the key notes. I think you can find better facilities for next year but other than that I hope you will continue to offer events in Europe.

"Promised a lot but failed to deliver" by Amit Jhunjhunwala

Amit Jhunjhunwala — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:15:38 GMT

The title and the synopsis of the conference sessions were attractive. However, it was very disappointing that there were almost no takeaways.

--> Most of the speakers were intent on establishing the fact on why the Web 2.0 is the big thing

--> Why people and companies should use it.

--> What led to Web 2.0

But there were no information on what Web 2.0 can do? How to harness the power of Web 2.0? How can it financially benefit corporations.

In short, a lot of hot air and beating on one's drum.

It would have otherwise been a complete waste of time had it not been for some very smart people that I met.

"Simon Wardley" by Olof Hoverfält

Olof Hoverfält — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:01:19 GMT

Short on Cycles, Long on Storage. Great presentation combining theory and frameworks with substance. Very logical and entertaining!

"Advertising 2.0 session" by sebastian marcu

sebastian marcu — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:50:30 GMT

The presentation gave great insights into the Advertising trends for social media, and provided valuable recommendations to making good use of those trends. Nate Elliott is a brilliant and inspiring presenter. I look forward to accessing this presentation on Slideshare.

"Enterprise 2.0 - Tools for Changing Organizations" by Stefan Wenzel

Stefan Wenzel — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:56:02 GMT

The skill that horoskop writers or women predicting your future using tarot cards must have is to say something which makes you think: "Yes, that fits to me/ I know this situation". First a bit excited you will follow reading or listening to the predictions, but the longer you give attention to them, the less substance or pragmatism you will be able to grasp.

I just felt a bit like this during this session. More buzzwords and heroism than goal orientation. Maybe some concrete use cases would have helped.

"Pros & Cons" by paula

paula — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:21:53 GMT

Well, my feedback on the event.

negative aspects:
- no coffee on the first day, even if we are talking about a bad coffee like this one
- outrageous the fact that a conference that cost more than 1000€ gives a sandwich for lunch (if we were talking about one or two days, but 4 days lunching sandwichs?!)
- paying for leaving coats and luggage
- alcohol at tea time, without anything to eat (on the second day)

positive aspects:
- some speakers (just some, because there are others that I do not even understand why they were here)

In conclusion:
This was my first conference of O'Reilly, I only will go to another one if you get really good speakers, so good that make me forget all the so negative aspects of being in a foreign country with so bad conditions, for four days.

"Metaverse & Marketing: Games and Virtual Worlds in Product Promotion" by silvia

silvia — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:25:42 GMT

A present presentation that presents a presentiment for presently presence.

"Missing focus on larger corporations..." by Martin Møller

Martin Møller — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:50:05 GMT

which have classic websites but now want to be part of the web 2.0 era.

I think the conference miss a session or two focused on what/how it is possible to do a change from web 1 to web 2.0

I had expected the marketing and community track had contained a case or two which could inspire me and give me inspiration and ideas how to add web 2.0 elements to our web.

The conference has given me a lot of ideas, but all these comes in fragments in the different workshops and sessions.

"Product lectures" by dan rimon

dan rimon — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 08:33:47 GMT

im coming from the product field and not technlogly or marketing.

in the future ill be happy to see more product lectures, such as the "passionet users" lecutre/workshop.

there were not enough lectures related to product and UI.

"Killing the org.charts - but building new ones!" by Henrik Jonsson

Henrik Jonsson — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:01:52 GMT

Soren! The old org.charts is just being replaced by new ones. Facebook and other successful web2.0 networks (like CoreMedia!) is not anarchies, they are strong central idées for "the art of letting go!" The idé that "everyone should be bloggers" is not self-organized, but the blogging itself is. OK?

"Immersive Experiences: Intersections between Web 2.0 and Games" by Alice Taylor

Alice Taylor — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:47:38 GMT

Game design has dealt with a lot of the interaction issues that designer-developers are just beginning to face today. Ideas like flow, easter eggs, and feature discovery have been used and refined for years by game designers to achieve some of the same user experiences web designers are pursuing now.

This session looks to games and other related fields for both inspiration and practical strategies for improving web design.

Speakers :
-- Alice Taylor
-- Sampo Karjalainen

"Enterprise 2.0: Tools for Changing Organizations" by Brady Forrest

Brady Forrest — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:43:59 GMT

The user experience is more critical today with the emergence of Web 2.0 during the past few years. Today wikis, blogs, and widgets are a part of the daily nomenclature in the work environment, but there are many questions around how this Web 2.0 world moves into the Enterprise world.

How do software vendors bring the best features and functionalities to the masses? Are these companies spending their R&D on bringing to market small applications that focus on one task or are they focused on improving their core applications, or is both possible? Do Web 2.0 apps have enough speed, security, and stability for the Fortune 500 CIOs and thousands of employees around the world?

This panel will explore the intersection of the Web and Enterprise 2.0 worlds and discuss what is ready for prime time.

Speakers :
-- Brady Forrest
-- Lee Bryant
-- Sam Lawrence
-- Laurent Gasser

"Breaking Down The Barriers: Design for Accessibility" by Martin Stehle

Martin Stehle — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:36:52 GMT

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

"Advertising 2.0" by Peter Gentsch

Peter Gentsch — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:30:04 GMT

We know that social networks and other participatory sites are new online gathering places for consumers, and that these consumers are highly involved and keen interacting, not just consuming content.

Because of their high traffic and intense involvement, these sites are very interesting for advertisers… but are Web 2.0 consumers receptive to advertising? What kind of impact does a banner insertion have in a social network?

This panel will discuss the effectiveness of advertising on social networks and other user-generated sites, as well as corporate willingness to devote advertising budgets given the various unknowns.

Speakers :
-- Axel Schmiegelow
-- Nate Elliott

"Consumer-Generated Advertising" by Torsten Schwarz

Torsten Schwarz — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:23:03 GMT

After some initial high-profile successes, consumer-generated advertising campaigns have proven more difficult to get right than they seemed. Context, community, and control (or lack thereof) are hard tricky to balance, and it's easy to get burned or simply miss the target. While companies seem eager to tap the creative potential of their customer communities, marketers must understand what works and what to watch out for.

This panel explores case studies demonstrating different approaches to this potentially powerful advertising strategy.

Speakers :
-- Benjamin Long
-- Dieter Rappold

"Use Somebody Else's Infrastructure: Building a Webapp on EC2, S3 and Other Tools" by Jonathan Weiss

Jonathan Weiss — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:19:17 GMT

Scaling a Web Application is a very hard problem, especially for small project and teams who do not have sufficient manpower, money, and time to solve this problem. Luckily Amazon already had to solve this problem in their datacenters and offers their services to other developers.

This talk will introduce the two most important Amazon Web Services, the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and the Simple Storage Service (S3), and will present different ways to leverage them in your own web application. Ruby on Rails will be used for the examples but they will apply to any web framework.

Several use-cases will be covered that show how S3 and EC2 can be used to move load from your servers to Amazon’s or even to completely host your application at Amazon.

After the talk developers should know when and how to use Amazon’s services to scale their own application at low costs. We will also hear the CEO of Web OS platform Ghost and how they use more Amazon Webservices than anyone else.

Speakers :
-- Jonathan Weiss
-- Zvi Schreiber

"Analytics for Web 2.0" by Andreas Weigend

Andreas Weigend — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:14:07 GMT

Analytics for Web 1.0 focused on translating metrics from print and television (such reach) to online (unique users). These measures did not capture the effect the material had on the audience – they could not, since the audience had no way of expressing interest and engagement.

Traditional page view counts and time spent on the site were notable efforts in approximating engagement but it is now clear that the duration a user spends at a page is far more important than just mere page view counts.

In contrast, Web 2.0 is defined by user participation and interaction, both with the site (saving, rating, tagging, annotating), and with other users (forwarding, commenting, responding).

These clearly observable and notable interactive behaviors gave rise to a rich set of Web2.0 metrics that can far more accurately measure active user engagement and the effect the page has on the user.

Besides providing accurate representations of user behavior, these metrics would serve as building blocks for useful user-centric tools.

For example, Flickr's "interestingness" ranking is an example of how these newer metrics on engagement (favorites, comments) can also be used to bubble up outstanding and unique photos amongst millions of mundane ones. While specific sites such as Amazon.com were central to Web 1.0, the notion of a standalone site is disappearing in Web 2.0. Companies are now being represented on widgets and mini-applications on user's sites and Facebook profiles, and being reported on blogs across the web.

There has also been a strong trend towards opening up datasets via APIs and RSS feeds, and encouraging developers to build 3rd party services on top of them. Given these decentralization trends, highly relevant opinions and content are now distributed across the World Wide Web. Analytics measuring metrics on a site alone has become only one half of what needs to be tracked.

Given all these changes, how can you measure these metrics of "active engagement" in both qualitative and quantitative measures, and what are the actions that can be taken based on them? Given new usability technologies like AJAX, how should these affect the ways you measure your analytics? What instruments do you need to develop to collect relevant activities that are happening across the web, both around the data you provide and opinions about you in all the various user networks, blogs and forums?

Web 2.0 has brought about profound changes in user engagement and decentralization of sites. At the heart of companies will be their ability to identify new key metrics that reflect these changes, and develop highly actionable plans that allows for quick and effective response to short-term issues, as well as factoring in a long-term strategy.

Speakers :
-- Andreas Weigend
-- Bill Tancer

"What Happens To Print as the Web Rises" by Sam Sethi

Sam Sethi — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:10:10 GMT

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

"Social Commerce and Community" by Jochen Krisch

Jochen Krisch — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:59:11 GMT

Social commerce is so 2.0, it almost sounds like a buzzword mashup. But the idea is really the natural evolution of the principle that your best customers are your best sales people, and it is redefining the affiliate business.

From involving the community in product wikis to providing customers with shopping widgets so they can promote and sell your products, social commerce can be powerful in the right mix. Come hear best practices in this latest take on community practice and commerce.

Speakers :
-- Hagen Fisbeck
-- Jochen Krisch
-- Jeremie Berrebi
-- Mattias Miksche

"From a Mobile Telephone to a Computer - a Reality Dysfunction" by Imran Ali

Imran Ali — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:53:43 GMT

The mobile phone is becoming more advanced, but should it? This talk is going to take a look at the reality of carrying a personal computer in your pocket.

Some of the trends that will be examined: * Smart vs simple - the buzz of iPhone/N95 vs. huge sales of low end handsets, perhaps it has to with cameras hitting 10MP with flash, auto focus, etc., storage hitting 8GB, GPS, UMTS/GPRS/HSUPA/Wifi and a net result of no battery life
* HMI (human mobile interaction) - as these devices become mobile personal computers the UI is (still) hugely flawed. Sure it can do anything, but only if you have time to click thirteen dialog boxes
* Development Platforms - there is a lot of work going on to provide abstraction layers from the device hardware (DirectX for phones) to allow easier development, at the same time operators are looking to bundle up apps into containers to simplify certification process

Led by Ian Hay and Imran Ali, two well known telephony experts who originally teamed up at Orange.

Speakers :
-- Imran Ali
-- Ian Hay