2009 was an exciting year at the Web 2.0 Summit. From the battle for real-time search between Bing and Google and platform vs. content presentations from Adobe and AOL, news broke every hour. The power of the nework was presented passionately from Sean Parker who noted that relationships in the cloud have replaced the power of content and unlimited storage as the agent of change in the market.

John Battelle hosted the discussion with grace, insight and humor, yet some of the pointed challeges from last year were missed; I'll never forget Jerry. Tim O'Reilly, the mad scientist of intellect and influence, shared his passion for Government 2.0. Hearing about his experiences working at the local, state and national level was a wake up call. Keep it up, our society needs tools for more effective participation. 

Yet, after all of the probing questions and heady computer science of scaling to 300+M users without flying whales, what brought me back to reality was the teens focus group facilitated by Safa Rashtchy. Our kids, struggling with identity and short on cha-ching, were painfully honest in their naivety. No longer idled by the need to understand TCP/IP or buggy pre-beta software, they go where their friends gather and rarely veer away. O captain! My captain!

It was an inspiring event in many ways. Those attending witnessed the edges of the problem space and interacted with others building the bridges in-between. The perfect ending would have been to join Reid Hoffman for the Pioneer awards, but alas, my tour was over. I was excited to celebrate my 8th Anniversary at home with my family and...talk shop with my partner. :)

See you online! 

Some links to the coverage:

Bing news:

Google news:

Web 2.0 Summit: Surprise! It's Google's Sergey Brin 

Adobe:

Sean Parker: