So, there I was at the first ever PICNIC – a cross media conference taking place in Amsterdam last week…
Highlights included John Underkoffler, Minority Report advisor, demonstrating his gestural interface technology. You had to be there to appreciate it…
Craig(slist) Newmark came across as really caring about his users and not wanting to sell out. He answers customer service emails and takes down unwanted content. He’s more interested in making his website run faster than Web 2 point doh!…
Marc Canter told us about OpenID – an open standard that will enable Net users to have one login account for all the websites that use OpenID. Cool! He also vigorously pushed his new, open source, Digital Lifestyle Aggregator software. He’s a performer.
In a break, Marc and I talked around my (Kendra like) pet subjects of ‘service clouds’ and ‘user-centric computing’. If you can have an open API for IDs then why not have one for dating or addresses or photos or anything? Hence we see more ‘mashups’ using these open APIs. Doesn’t it seem that many websites will end up being portals to these ‘service clouds’?
The ‘Web 2.0’ travel session promised much but was really a ‘let’s save the posterior of KLM’, the sponsor (ahem). If we add a blog, wiki, forum or whatever Web 2.0 thingy to our site, will you buy more tickets from us? I proposed that people just wanted the best deal and are using price comparison websites to find them and, oh, that brands were dead. I think that last part was the hardest bit for the panel to swallow – the Dutch are very loyal to their national airline.
Tune in for PICNIC06 Review: concluding part on Friday.