Web 2.0 Wonderland

Spent today at the Web 2.0 Conference. Lots of great stuff happening in many, many place. The steady replacement of Web 1.0 - the published web, with Web 2.0, the user created web seems to be in full stream. Many folks in attendance, lot of start-up in all modes of existence (unfunded to seemingly flush with cash), piles of great idea and an overall good buzz to the place.

I was struck by the degree to which many of the attendee's, observers and in particular vendors seem to speak a whole new "web 2.0" language. After spending the last couple years serving large conservative companies in an entirely unrelated market, I was left wondering why in the world all these interesting companies were so focused on inventing a language to communicate with each other rather than figuring out how to communicate with the larger world. Clearly we are still in early adopter wonderland here.

Full credit to the folks at tellme who launched their new blackberry voice interface with the tag line "Say what you want and get it" While the demo was less than perfect due to poor cel coverage on the show floor, it was instantly clear to everyone what they did. I suppose they could have described their new product as a portable IVR front end for mobile web applications and been technically correct, or even as a multisensory interface capability to the web 2.0 world, but then only the web 2.0 crowd would know what they did.

Say what you want and get it...sometime the simple answers are the best ones.