93South - Thoughts on New England Web 2.0

I recently attended The Brave New Web conference put on by the MIT Enterprise Forum at the Colonnade.  The great thing about this show is that I do not go into a complete boring detailed transcription of the event because, in this age of on-demand media, there were blogs about it even as it happened - check out Allen Sterns Center Networks blog with a complete blow-by-blow. 

All in all, it was in great conference with a good turnout that had a few key takeaways or thoughts for me as it relates the New England and Boston Web 2.0 technology space:

1. Jeremy Allaire does a pretty good job at pulling-off that “nice guy” entrepreneur thing…the “King of PR maven” also managed to gloat that Brightcove has not invested a dime in Marketing “Invest in Thought Leadership…NOT Marketing”.
   
2. Jeff Taylor of Monster.com and Eons.com fame is pretty darn cool (albeit a bit of an ego maniac)…he also took the opportunity to rib Allaire for that “build it and they will come” comment later in his panel.
   
3. There is a direct correlation between the quality of a panel discussion and the moderator.  The first panel, Connecting The Dots included a good lineup of industry experts but also a great moderator in Joseph Lassiter III (Harvard) who kept the discussion on topic and the company grandstanding down to a minimum.  The other 2 panels that I sat through, although dotted with excellent points, seemed a bit directionless.
   
4. As pointed out in one of the early panels, Boston really is starting to build out a strong base of web 2.0 / forward thinking companies that just have not hit their stride yet.  It stuck me that one of Boston’s issues is a PR one - the area just has not had a high-profile ”home run” IPO of acquisition in this area and needs to work on the image of the area as being a little behind the times. 

There was a good setup of local tech start-ups that I had a chance to talk with while I was there.  The lineup included:

• Tabblo (Cambridge, MA) A creative space for pulling together pics (ala Flickr) and text to create narrative web pages.  This is a very interesting development that has evolved significantly since it’s launch last June.  Founder Antonio Rodriguez was one of the highlights of a later panel…you can find his blog here:  http://theonda.org/

• wis.dm (Cambridge, MA)  “The smarter social network”…Keep an eye out for their public beta to start THIS FRIDAY, this is like a del.icio.us meets Squido - social networking around topics of interest.
• Compete (Boston, MA) Addicted to the incredible inaccurate numbers of Alexa?  Try the local alternative with a larger sample base!
• Pawspot (Somerville, MA) “Where local pets and people meet”…another great local social network around your four-legged friends.

Also at the show but I did not get a chance to look at were Referral Monitor (word-of-mouth referral marketing), Scrybe  (web-based Calendar and To-do’s ). Foneshow (Narrowcast radio and podcasting over the cell phone network) and Podzinger (search inside audio).

NYC based Expo TV was also there - the video based ePinions start with a strong VOD footprint as well.

As I mentioned, I no longer need to give you the nity gritty…you can read all about it on theses posts:

Brave New Web Conference - Wrap Up Post

Live: Brave New Web - Keynote - John Furrier - podtech.net

Live: Brave New Web - Where do I get my Web 2.0?

Live: Brave New Web: Connecting the dots - includes a Web 1.0 vs. 2.0 discussion

Live: Brave New Web - Jeremy Allaire Keynote Discussion

In the moment… notes from the MIT Enterprise Forum 2007 Winter Conference

The Brave New Web? It’s all business

Brave New Web

Jeremy Allaire on video & startups at Brave New Web conference

NOTE:  I am having technical difficulties with my comment system at the moment…it may, or may not be available below…