SocialDevCamp East, so much fun

I attended the SocialDevCamp East today. It was a lot of fun and very rewarding. The event was kind of like a conference, but unlike a typical research conference it didn't have any specific agenda or planned breakout sessions. I have attended many planned research conferences in the past, but this bar camp (bec it has free beer after 4pm) was definitely a unique experience. I would recommend future bar camps to anyone who is interested in technology.

My lessons learned from this event are as follows. First, the start-up culture on the East Coast is very different from which of the West Coast. On the East Coast, it's difficult to find either VCs or angel investors to fund start-ups that don't a sustainable revenue stream. Second, there is a large pool of talents on the East Coast (in the DC/MD/VA area) that is not currently being utilized to create social web and social media innovations. Third, it's possible to get non-AI developers to be excited about the Semantic Web.

By chance, I hosted a session on the Social Web + the Semantic Web. My original intent was to get people to talk about Semantic Web technologies and businesses that are crucial to the success of Social Web applications. But, it turned out that the audiences were very interested to explore the possibility of using Semantic Web technologies as differentiators to help them to stand out in the fast-change social media world. If you missed the discussion, you can find our discussion topics in this Twitter stream. Also you can find materials covered in my Social Web + Semantic Web slides.

I'm convinced that Twitter is useful (sometimes). While I was attending the conference, I sent my wife the Twitter stream of the SocialDevCamp (#SocialDevCamp). She was able to follow my session and see photos of me in an almost real-time experience.

How Web 2.0 has empowered our creativitiy

All humans are capable of creating new ideas. In the past, to communicate creative ideas would require a deep marketing and sales budget, if you really want your voice be heard. For example, if you were an artist or a writer, your best hope was to seek a media company to back the distribution of your creative products. Without an army strong marketing and sales, individuals (including myself) have limited opportunities to express unpolished ideas and share which with the public. Today, Web 2.0 applications have changed the way individuals communicate their creative ideas.



While preparing my lecture slides on SlideShare, I stumble upon a presentation titled "the thin ideal" -- an interesting look into the history and culture expectation of thin women. On SlideShare, not only you can browse through the presentation slides, but also you can hear the narration of the presentation given by the author. This is an extremely powerful way to expressive an individual's creativity.



Sites like SlideShare and YouTube encourage individuals to create. They eliminated the expensive cost that were previously required for marketing and sales. People are now free to create without worrying that their ideas can't be heard.

Also, Web 2.0 applications have made easy for audiences to submit feedbacks. Take "the thin ideal" as an example. After the slides were posted, a reader submitted a related YouTube video as a comment. As I accidentally discovered the slides, I also discovered a separate video presentation that is relevant to my context.

Web 2.0 is changing the way people share and communicate ideas. If you have ideas to share, examples like "the thin ideal" should encourage you to publish your thoughts online. You publish, they will come.

Web 2.0: Is It Really Different?

People are excited about Web 2.0. People are excited about Ajax, Flash, tagging, social network, and web services. From a business point of view, is Web 2.0 really that much different from Web 1.0?

In his article "Web 2.0: Is It Really Different?", Win Treese overviews the key components of Web 2.0 (i.e., Ajax, Flash, tagging, social network, and web services). Like many others, Treese believes that it's difficult to define exactly what Web 2.0 is, but certainly we can talk about its properties.

Pinning down Web 2.0 is like trying to scoop up water with your hands. You can’t really hold onto all of it, but after most of the water runs through your fingers, there’s still something left.

Yahoo! Tech, My First Impression

Recently Yahoo! announced a technology review website called Yahoo! Tech. This new site is aimed to help average people to follow and track the latest technology development. It's kind of like what CNET does.

Few things I like about Yahoo! Tech:

• It allows users to save and share tech products that they plan to purchase. Users can also comment on products that they already own, and these comments are automatically shared with the community.


• It's an eye-candy. A lot of Flash and Ajax. There is even an option that allows you to adjust the web page layout to fit either a wide-screen display or a normal display.

Few things I don't like about Yahoo! Tech:

• The user interface is too fancy. Though I think the use of Ajax and Flash are exciting, but too much of it becomes a distraction when I want to focus on the content of the page.


• Not enough information. Maybe because the site is new, not many tech products have expert reviews and user comments. I guess this will improve as time pasts.

I think Yahoo! Tech is a good project and has a lot of potential. If it is to compete with CNET, its content must be improved and expanded. Until then, I stick with CNET reviews for my tech shopping needs.