willCode4Beer

Yesterday's Keynote

I wasn't able to get around to posting this yesterday. It was a very busy day.
The best part of the keynote was the presentation by John Battelle, best known as the founder of Wired.
Great quote:
"We had no idea what we were doing but, we had a great idea." (in reference to starting wired) "... like most Web 2.0 companies" (talking about the current state of things.

One of the more interesting parts of his feature was the evolution of the user interface to the machine.

• in the beginning there was the command line - we had to communicate in the computer's language; prompt? blinky cursor
• next, the "hunt and poke interface" - Windows/Mac - we look around for the right thing to click on
• today, search - which brings us back to a command line with a blinky cursor. The major difference is, we communicate with the machine in our own language instead the language of the machine.

The overlying theme of the presentation is about how search is revolutionizing how we communicate with the machine, and how the machines are changing to revolutionize how we communicate with each other.

His definition Web 2.0 is that it is composed of technologies that connect people with other people. Whereas the previous version used technology to connect people to machines.

His take on the new web. "The best sites are iterative." They start simple (and on a shoestring) instead. They then add small changes very frequently based on user feedback.

The final concept he tried to demonstrate was the idea of performing a search with a camera phone. To me, it was funny because it was presented as a future vision but, the way described, I think it could be done with about 2 days of development. Maybe I'll place a post on willCode4Beer over the weekend.

-

Labels: John Battelle, media, web 2.0

posted by willCode4Beer @ 11:37 AM