Media and Bloggers Find Real Stuff, not Fluff at Web 2.0 Conference

As ExecutiveBiz The New New Internet Conference panelist Brad Feld reflected in his post-event blog, many of his Silicon Valley friends rarely stray from the “startup center of the universe.” In mingling and engaging with Conference speakers and attendees at the DC event, it did not take long for Feld, Managing Director at Foundry Group and Mobius Venture Capital, to realize how far markets such as DC have come as an incubator of innovation and talent.

Even now, two weeks after the fact, participants are still talking about the Conference. Just the other day, on the Metro, some guy starting asking me what I thought of the keynote. About two sentences in I realized the man had a Bluetooth earpiece and wasn’t talking to me at all, or referring to this particular Conference, so kind of a bad example there. And given the fact that a train car full of passengers thought I was talking to myself, I’m going to avoid the Red Line for a few weeks.

But in all seriousness, as the post-event media and blog coverage continue to flow in from sites ranging from GigaOm to Internet News and The Trend Junkie, one of most notable themes flowing through the reports is how tangible Web 2.0 applications have been within both the region’s public and private sector.

In summarizing the panel discussion on politics and the Internet, eWeek’s Sean Gallagher noted how the speakers highlighted real-life examples of how candidates have been impacted by social networking sites and the way campaigns are using them to connect with a new generation of voters.

Wyatt Kash from Government Computer News further addressed how Web 2.0 inside the beltway - Federal Agencies to be specific - has moved well beyond ‘the experimentation stage,’ citing efforts by the CDC, FDA, NASA and the intelligence community to implement and execute the use of social media tools both internally and externally.

While attending reporters and bloggers recognized that the people and companies driving Web 2.0 in the DC region are producing real applications and not simply fluff and hype, there was also a sense that attendees were still in some ways students of the game. In the Somewhat Frank blog, Jen Consalvo captured this vibe by remarking that, unlike many Silicon Valley conferences where everyone purports to understand every nook and cranny of a given topic, attendees roaming the halls and interacting with panelists were eager to learn and absorb expertise.

This is encouraging, because the surest way for innovation to grind to a halt is when entrepreneurs decide they know it all. The panelists and attendees at the Conference showed themselves to be both educators and students. What this means for the region and Web 2.0 in the coming months is hard to tell. But unlike some other conferences, where you show up, listen to what people have to say, and then kind of forget about it until the conference rolls around next year, there is a definite sense that local entrepreneurs will take what they have seen and heard at the conference and build on it, apply it and share it.

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