The Next Web

I had the opportunity to go the The Next Web Conference on Friday in Amsterdam.

I came to be inspired and I was. The speakers in the morning focussed on the financial aspects of the next web. Of what made great companies and the difference between Silicon Valley and Europe.

In Silicon Valley there is a tremendous amount of venture capital available, in Europe this is different. But there is more. Europeans teach their students to be employees instead of employers and entrepreneurs. There is not a big culture of entrepreneurship in Europe. Not as much as it is weaved into society in the US. We depend to much on our government - social welfare institutions, insurance etc.

We do however have the big advantage of a consumer market with very good bandwidth. In the US they are far behind on this and will stay like that for some time. We also have growing mobile broadband penetration. We should build cutting edge applications, business models and concepts - now - to become leaders in these areas and close the gap between Silicon valley and Europe.

Something else about this stuck with me. We tend to develop concepts and ideas for our own respective markets. At a later stage we might transform them to fit in another european country. This is not very smart. Applications and concepts around them should have a global audience in mind.

Deborah Schultz gave a rather vague presentation of the value in the next web: people are important, weaving relationships online. We should become weavers, listeners, connectors, critics, partial geeks, detectives, catalysts, diplomats and jugglers. Being approachable, intuitive, inquisitive and driven by relationships.

Tapan Bhat(Yahoo!’s vice president of Front Doors, driving strategy, product management and programming for the primary starting points to Yahoo) gave a good talk about personalization & customization. Adding a P of personalization to the 4P's (Product, Price, Promotion & Placement) of marketing. He talked about pre-demand personalization based on all the information you have of the client. Do not bother her right away with choices and options. Intelligently guess what she wants based on what you know.

The last speaker was Dick Hardt - Founder and CEO of Sxip Identity. An advocate of Identity 2.0, the user-centric approach to digital identity on the web. He has a very unique and enteraining way of presenting. He drew a parallel between buying liquor in Canada and buying stuff on the internet. About authentication & authorization. And how simple this should be. Interesting stuff.

Between presentation startups got 10 minutes each to present themselves. I really liked Mobiluck a instant social network based on the proximity of the members at a given point & time. Based on cellular technology. Another gem was Zyb. A site that is able to synchronize your contact and calendar from your phone to there site. And it actually works. eBuddy (msn gtalk etc via the browser combined) and Respectance (virtual cemetery).