Last weekend, Orian and I flew down to Miami for BarCampMiami and Carsonified‘s Future of Web Apps (FOWA). Unfortunately I caught a cold and we missed most of BarCamp, but at least we made it to Fraser Kelton‘s presentation on AdaptiveBlue‘s Glue — a browser add-on that lets you see what your friends think about stuff all over the web [I plan to write an in-depth review of Glue soon].
The Future of Web Apps took place on Monday, February 23 (workshops) and Tuesday, February 24 (conference). We only attended the second day, a one-track lineup of some of the biggest names in the business. Celebrity certainly draws a crowd, but I have to admit that the whole day was pretty underwhelming and uninspiring. It seems the only session that actually dealt with the future of web apps — “How to create powerful web app user interfaces using Objective-J and Cappuccino” from 280 North — was the one we missed when we got caught up in a hallway conversation with Fraser, Alex Iskold (founder of AdaptiveBlue), and Alex Hillman (a.k.a. @alexknowshtml). While the conversation was great, it was a bummer that we missed one of the few, if not the only, insights into what’s next.
The lineup was as follows:
- Getting Real 2.0 – Jason Fried, 37 Signals
- What is the Future of the Browser – Dion Almaer and Ben Falbraith, Mozilla
- Open Strategy :: Applied – Dan Theurer, Yahoo
- Scaling your tech team – Joe Stump, Digg
- Outisde the interface: more words to worry about – Kristina Halvorson, Brain Traffic
- Order from Chaos – Future of the Web – Aza Raskin, Mozilla
- Facebook Connect – Dave Morin, Facebook
- How to achieve tech team nirvana – Joel Spolsky, Fog Creek
- Brand 2.0 – Alex Hunter, Virgin
- How to create powerful web app user interfaces using Objective-J and Cappuccino – Francisco Tolmasly, 280 North
- Ryan Carson interviews Joel Spolsky and Jason Fried
- A typical rant – Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Library TV
Naturally, I did my best to capture it all on Twitter. My wi-fi connection was spotty, so there are more holes here than I’d like, but you’ll get the idea. Overall, it’s safe to say that I wasn’t terribly impressed, and would have greatly preferred to see a series of truly innovative web apps by startups and corporations around the world that are actually changing the game, not just a bunch of product pitches and trite advice from the usual suspects. Maybe I’m too immersed in the conference circuit and I’ve just heard it all before. I hope that’s the case, and that the other 300 or so attendees really got something of value out of it.
My Twitter notes are below:
- About to head into the Adrienne Arsht Center for #FOWA Miami
- I’m Twittering from the Future of Web Apps in Miami http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2009/miami
- If you don’t want to follow my #fowa tweets, feel free to unfollow. Follow @whitneyhesslive to find out when I’m done so you can re-follow
Getting Real 2.0 – Jason Fried, 37 Signals
- Jason Fried of @37signals is on the stage. He was going to give his “Getting Real” talk, but decided instead to do something new
- He’s talking about products that are organically built on the byproducts of what we do every day. Getting Real generated $1mil last yr
- Jason Fried: @garyvee just owned a wine shop, and was doing all this other stuff to support it. But that other stuff rocketed him
- Famous chefs a great example of this. They don’t just cook food. They have books, TV shows, kitchenware, etc. They share themselves
- “The best thing to do is share the information” Think about your byproducts, don’t be afraid of your competitor learning your secrets
- “Free is the wrong direction for this industry” — Jason Fried. “Free is not the future of business; it’s the future of failure”
- Charging for something doesn’t mean you’re going to survive, but it’s a lot easier for services who don’t charge to die
- Pownce bought by SixApart, I Want Sandy bought by Twitter. Lots of users left with no service.
- Even Google has decided that certain things aren’t worth giving away for free.
- “Somehow failure became cool.” — @jasonfried Wouldn’t tell a farmer to fail early & fail often. Why do we think it’s ok in software?
- Look for your byproducts. Don’t focus on failure. Pay attention to successes. Start charging for your products — @jasonfried
- Most @37signals users on paying plans starting on paying plans. “Free converts, but pay converts better.” — @jasonfried
- Don’t focus on the competition. We’re in a world where 100 companies doing the same thing can be very successful — @jasonfried
- People are going to start trusting free services less and less. Users want to know that the company has a vested interest in surviving
What is the Future of the Browser – Dion Almaer and Ben Falbraith, Mozilla
- Up now: Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith of Mozilla on “What is the future of the browser?”
- Ben Galbraith & @dalmaer showing old Netscape browser. Audience chuckles. They’re saying that browsers are actually getting simpler
- @jjg gets a shout out for coining the term “AJAX”– Web has come a long way since the invention of AJAX. Expectations are much greater
- We all thought Mapquest was cool until we used Google Maps. Once something better comes along, your expectations are changed forever
- All that browsers really give us are text, rectangles and graphics. But lots of technologies have been built on top to do so much more
- The Mozilla guys are talking about Canvas — games, image manipulation in the browser. In Chrome, Firefox, Opera, but not IE
- Fast JavaScript totally changes what you can do in your web app. “It can power really expensive algorithms in the browser”
- Ben Galbraith showing a video of internet latency. “This is something we need to guard against”
- Twitter timeout for geeky stuff I don’t understand
- @orian next to me getting turned on by talk of the Palm Pre
- Mozilla Labs working on Bespin, v1 launched last week. High-performance code-editing environ in browser https://bespin.mozilla.com/
- Delicious Library http://delicious-monster.com/ lets you scan your books into your comp using iSight camera
- Mozilla guys just showed photo of Jared Leto looking hot, and another looking fat. “Different interface, same implementation”
- If you don’t want to follow my #fowa tweets, feel free to unfollow. Follow @whitneyhesslive to find out when I’m done so you can re-follow
Open Strategy :: Applied – Dan Theurer, Yahoo
- Dan Theurer @dantheurer of Yahoo! on the stage now talking about openness. Unfortunately his slides are corrupt so he’s winging it
- Carsonified is building a new web app called Truvay http://truvay.com Top secret, Ryan won’t tell us what it does. Silly
Scaling your tech team – Joe Stump, Digg
- Joe Stump @joestump, Digg’s lead architect, is up now talking about “Scaling your tech team”
- @joestump saying that all developers are stubborn, lazy, whiners :-P
- Developers are eccentric. @Joestump telling story about dev who required shower installed in his office – does his best thinking there
- How to scale your dev team: Lower barriers. Recognize that Jedis are rare, & you need to keep them focused on their core competencies
- Digg has four dev teams. They use Basecamp to collaborate, Track to track bugs. They’re semi-Agile and have daily scrum
Outisde the interface: more words to worry about – Kristina Halvorson, Brain Traffic
- @kristinahalvorson taking time out of her presentation to discuss why there are so few women on the speaker circuit
- @orian gave me his computer so that I could tweet this, my wifi is all f’ed up
- @halvorson asked Ryan Carson @ryancarson & Chris Messina @factoryjoe to sit on the stage w her to talk about the lackof women speakers
- I don’t think that the lack of women speakers is the conf organizers fault. I think it’s the women’s fault. Put yourself out there!
- @ryancarson asking people to send him ideas for great women speakers tagged with #fowaspeak
- @factoryjoe: we need more diversity throughout. Been an issue for BarCamp as well. Friends need to encourage each other to contribute
- Thanks to @orian for being so selfless. I’m out
Order from Chaos – Future of the Web – Aza Raskin, Mozilla
- Rule #1 for running a conference: make sure speakers can show the slides they spent weeks working on
- Aza Raskin of Mozilla is on the stage talking about “chaordic” nature of open source
- Aza proving that it’s very difficult for us to talk about people without personalizing them — so why do computers dehumanize us?
- @azaaza says we need to stop thinking of things as technical problems and start thinking about them as people problems
- “IM is people with the web tacked on. The browser is the web with people tacked on.” — @azaaza
- Since the presentation is broken at FOWA, @azaaza isn’t able to demo Ubiquity. Check it out here: http://is.gd/1Wns
- The concept of Ubiquity: web content is disconnected, and *you* have to go to it. Instead what if everything came to you?
Facebook Connect – Dave Morin, Facebook
- Dave Morin @davemorrin from Facebook is up now.
- @davemorrin talking about Facebook connect. “Web isn’t about information anymore, it’s about people.” Wasn’t it always?
- Facebook Connect is the first step in enabling everyone on the web to break down walls between applications and around Facebook
- Facebook Connect: identity, friends and feed
- Why is a Facebook Connect pitch part of the *Future* of Web Apps? Facebook Connect is in the present. What’s next?
How to achieve tech team nirvana – Joel Spolsky, Fog Creek
- Joel Spolsky @spolsky is now on stage talking about “How to achieve team nirvana” http://www.joelonsoftware.com/
- @spolsky just showed this hilarious Best Buy image making fun of Circuit City: http://is.gd/kI7R
- “Stop making social networks. They’ve all been made. There’s only going to be one micro-blogging platform: Twitter” — @spolsky
- @spolsky is showing off his very cool Fog Creek offices http://fogcreek.com with private offices for developers to concentrate
- @spolsky showing pic of the Mahalo office, all open desks. “If you ever happen to get in the zone, you’ll quickly be taken out of it”
- Mahalo offices: http://is.gd/kIfV
- At Fog Creek, meetings are always scheduled for right after lunch. Lots of snacks in the office. Showers. Flowers in the bathroom.
- @spolsky justifying his $849 Aeron chairs for each developer by showing that they’re only $1.63 per dev per week cuz they last 10 yrs
- Breaking bread together every day is critical for team dynamic. Daily team meal keeps them all motivated, connected — @spolsky
- Sucks that #FOWA Miami website has already been taken down. I was using the schedule to tweet. @RyanCarson are you aware of the problem?
Dave McClure, surprise guest
- @davemcclure is on the stage now with his AARRR presentation http://tinyurl.com/2gxq4q
- If you don’t want to follow my #fowa tweets, feel free to unfollow. Follow @whitneyhesslive to find out when I’m done so you can re-follow
Brand 2.0 – Alex Hunter, Virgin
- Alex Hunter @cubedweller from Virgin is now on the stage talking about “Brand 2.0”
- @cubedweller asks the audience: “How are you going to get us [consumers] to love you [brand]?”
- @cubedweller just showed the “JUMP! You Fuckers” sign outside the NYSE http://is.gd/kIuJ
- @cubedweller says about our generation: “We’ve all been fitted with bullshit detectors.” We know when we’re being marketed to
- @cubedweller is demo’ing new Virgin.com feature to the public for the very first time. It’s essentially a community reputation system
- @cubedweller just gave a huge shout out to http://rokkan.com, the agency who helped develop this upgrade to Virgin.com
Ryan Carson interviews Joel Spolsky and Jason Fried
- @spolsky & @jasonfried on the stage w @ryancarson, but I’m not finding the Qs particularly probing. Wish I could interview these guys
- Really disappointed that there weren’t any user experience practitioners on the presenter lineup at FOWA today. We cannot be ignored!
Aza Raskin back to demo Ubiquity
- @azaaza finally giving his demo of Ubiquity http://tinyurl.com/5lf7n7 Looks pretty damn sweet!
Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Library TV
- “Most people in business are thin-skinned, have no passion for what they do and are in it for the money” — @garyvee. Dead on
- @garyvee says that the sucky people are going to lose jobs and people with real skills are going to flourish = “market correction”
- “Go back to your hotel room, look in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘Why am I at this company that sucks straight shit?'” — @garyvee
- “If you don’t know where you want to end up, you’re broken.” — @garyvee
- @garyvee says he needs to hustle more. He’s doing too many speaking gigs and videos, and neglecting other projects
- “Everyone needs to stop crying, stop worrying, and [do something].” Stop talking about failure. Who’s the judge?
- That’s all folks. I’m done live-Twittering from the Future of Web Apps in Miami. Thanks for listening!
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