I posted about the Profiting from the New Web conference last month, and now the video summary of the day has been published. It was a real pleasure to chair the event and have the opportunity to provide some commentary in the video too.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to get in touch after the conference. I'm sure, given the overwhelming positive sentiment, that we'll be making this conference into a series. Watch this space.
I'm a fortunate geek. I got to chair the 6UK launch back in November, with keynote by Vint Cerf – fondly referred to as one of the fathers of the Internet. And on Monday this week, I chaired Profiting From The New Web at the Royal Society with keynote by Sir Tim Berners-Lee – inventor of the World Wide Web. How cool is that?!
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, New Web, London, 23rd May 2011 (courtesy Intellect)
I worked with the Web Science Trust and Intellect to design this week's conference, and we set ourselves this mission:
Discover new and better ways to do business, run our countries, and lead fulfilling and sustainable lives via the intelligent, innovative and diligent development of the New Web, and to make progress faster than otherwise.
The term Web 1.0 is applied retrospectively to a Web of documents and ecommerce. The term Web 2.0 has come to describe social community and user-generated content. The New Web – the Web of Data or the Semantic Web, and sometimes Web 3.0 – entails the Web itself understanding the meaning of that participation and content.
A component of the Web of Data, known as Open Data, encompasses the idea of freeing data so that others may query it, check and challenge it, augment it, and mash it up with other sources. Sir Tim is particularly motivated by this vision given its potential to drive scientific breakthrough, enhance delivery of public services and open up new frontiers for competitive advantage. Read more
Being so fascinated by and engrossed in social networking, and digital media relations more widely, I'm asked on a regular basis "What's the point of spending so much time online?".
The very basis of the question betrays the fact that the questioner still, like the majority of people to be fair, feels it necessary to divide their life up into "offline" and "online" portions. Yet they don't distinguish "time eating / not eating", "time talking / listening", "time with new people / with old acquaintances", "time on the phone / not on the phone".
Like eating, listening and telephones, digital media simply exists. It is part of life. Sure it may have its unique characteristics, but then what doesn't? I am living, working, having fun, exploring, innovating, learning... some of which just happens to be online and some offline. Read more
The third convergence conversation of 2008 will look at the impact that new bandwidth intensive services are placing on the UK's broadband infrastructure.
I'm delighted to be chairing the event, and we'll kick off with the following speakers:
Recent rumblings from ISPs have highlighted the fact that new bandwidth intensive on demand services are placing an enormous strain on ISPs' "all you can eat" business model. The BBC's iPlayer alone has already enjoyed rapid uptake with over 17 million programmes streamed or downloaded in the first seven weeks following its Christmas day launch. Read more