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    Web 2.0, Ajax and SOA Power Panel with Dion Hinchcliffe and Jeremy Geelan
    Click above to watch a SYS-CON Power Panel discussion on Web 2.0, Ajax, and SOA with Dion Hinchcliffe, Jeremy Geelan, and other industry notables including SOA Web Services Journal Editor-in-Chief, Sean Rhody. Taped on Dec 7th, 2005 from the Reuter's TV studio in Times Square.

     

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    MIX 06: Mashing Up Web 2.0 and Live Software

    « H E email
    posted Thursday, 23 March 2006
    Getting close to MIX 06The much-anticipated MIX 06 event finished up yesterday in Las Vegas and I've been pondering the meaning of the whole thing since.  Without question Microsoft is holding out an olive branch to the concepts in the Web 2.0 practice set (SPARK being one of the biggest examples).  Yet Microsoft is clearly trying to put its own unique imprimatur on the overall mindset of online software, mashups, and Web 2.0.  Not that Live Software itself is even Microsoft's version of Web 2.0. It's really a bit more like their version of Software as a Service.  That's not to say with MIX 06 that Microsoft wasn't attempting to reach the generally hip emerging tech crowd that follows Web 2.0.  In any case, it was a solid event, even if the general dearth of post-event blogging indicates that I'm not the only one trying to ascertain precisely what it all means.

    Tim O'Reilly and Bill Gates discuss the future of books at MIX 06There's also no question that MIX was heavy on Microsoft product overviews, though there was certainly coverage of other company's work as well, with a particularly strong showing by once-and-future Web 2.0 poster child, Amazon, and its Mechanical Turk (great coverage by Alex Barnett here.)

    Gates and O'Reilly: Discussing Web 2.0 Ideas Together At Last

    Of course, one of the most anticipated events of the conference was the loosely scripted conversation between Bill Gates and Tim O'Reilly on the morning of Day One.  This was a must-not-miss event and there was plenty of interesting material to ponder (my more detailed analysis here.)  The entire transcript is now available for those who couldn't attend and I loved some of the exchanges, which were invariably peppy and filled with the occasional mostly-humorous jab.  Tim O'Reilly, who heavily kept to his Web 2.0 tenets in the discussion, has also posted his thoughts on the exchange.  If you want to see two of the most pre-eminent minds in our business discuss what's going on in our industry today, you can't miss it. The video should be available soon as well.

    In other MIX news, Ajaxian notes that Atlas got a new licence at the conference, allowing folks to use it in production now.  Atlas is Microsoft' excellent Goliath in the coming Ajax IDE and framework wars, but who the David will be remains unclear.  Ajaxian's Ben Galbraith also goes over the session on the Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere (WPF/E), Microsoft's Flash "killer" that even runs on Firefox.  Flash is a RIA technology that is being used in Web 2.0 applications and already has 99% market penetration.  WPF/E does look impressive but it'll have to run very, very hard indeed to catch up.

    Enjoying Dinner at The Venetian at MIX 06There were more non-product discussions at MIX as well.  Kim Cameron had a major session on Identity that was well covered, though I'm convinced that the problem of good non-centralized identity credentials ala Identity 2.0 is still a ways off.  One of the more notorious sessions was the one titled Web 2.0: Show Me the Money with an all star cast that consisted of Adam Trachtenberg of eBay, Jeremy Zawodny, Michael Arrington (who BTW even had lunch with Bill Gates at MIX), Royal Farros, and Tim O'Reilly.  Jeremy and Royal had blog coverage of the session and with the big personalities involved it was probably one of the more entertaining and informative moments.

    There was lots more and you can catch good pieces by Marc Canter (whom I met for the first time when he stopped by the really fun dinner Alex Barnett and I had at the end of Day Two), who also tried to hold a microformat and structured blogging BoF but had to break off early when it was broken up by security (no kidding!)  For other good coverage of MIX 06, read the Houston Chronicles Tech Blog, as well as Dan Farber's thoughts on the first day.  Dare Obasanjo also does a small bit on the new Live developer center that was launched.  Some solid analysis of the Live phenomenon and developer message by Mary Jo Foley here.

    So, what did I think?  I think we're still at the absolute beginning of the online revolution.  Things are really going to start changing and while it's hard to see yet exactly how because of the disruptive forces that are still largely offstage but building, we're in for a wild ride.  Certainly, the MySpace revolution, compelling new products like Amazon's S3, and Microsoft's major investments in Live Software and  new Web 2.0 thinktank Live Labs shows where the future seems to lie, particularly around Social Computing.  When you put MIX into that context, you can see that it fits in but it's still only a single perspective within what's happening.

    Finally, DC 2.0

    Stowe Boyd and Dion Hinchcliffe at DC 2.0With the seemingly solid two weeks of Web 2.0-related events, I didn't get a chance to properly blog about our terrific Web 2.0 event in Washington DC last week.  Titled DC 2.0, we had some pretty darn excellent companies demo Web 2.0 software and a great crowd.  Thanks to Mintz Levin     for a truly terrific venue in Reston complete with extremely good hospitality service.  Stowe Boyd, Ken Yarmosh, and others are planning a newer, much bigger DC-based Web 2.0 event soon, so expect an announcement in the near future.  Also, good DC 2.0 coverage by Stowe and Steve Fisher here and here.

    OK so, that's it for the event coverage, it's back to the fun stuff here.  There's been so many exciting things around the next generation of the Web recently and even some excellent happenings coming up.  The next time I surface in public on the topic of Web 2.0 it should be at the Real-World Ajax Seminar in San Jose on April 24th where I'm giving a session on Ajax and SOA/Client best practices and patterns.  I'll also be giving a detailed talk on the future of Web 2.0 and how it relates to the Global SOA at Network+Interop on May 1st in Las Vegas.  Hope to see you there.  And as always, stop me and say hello, I do very much enjoy talking to folks following the next generation of the Web.

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    1. Steve Fisher left...
    Friday, 24 March 2006 11:43 am

    Dion, Great coverage of the Mix event. Sorry I couldn't make it. You definitely need to have a Mix type of event here in DC.


    2. Hooman left...
    Friday, 24 March 2006 5:25 pm

    Dion, do you really think that Microsoft is going to get "Web 2.0" right? I admit that I am impressed with their massive restructuring and attempts. In particular, their Live Clipboard experiment was incredibly cool and - as an aside - fits into what my company is working on. That being said, however, I am still fearful that their general approach is part of a greater initiative to establish Microsoft 2.0 - a world where they try to exert their control in a control the emerging web platform. Thoughts?


    3. Dion Hinchcliffe left...
    Saturday, 25 March 2006 12:15 pm :: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe

    Hooman,

    Yes, I think it's going to be hard for any large organization to give up control, which is a large part of what Web 2.0 is about: a shift of control to the users of the Web and away from traditional institutions.

    However, if Microsoft can solve important problems in open ways (Live Calendar and Simple Sharing Extensions being two good examples), then there is a chance to lead. But not to exert control. Those days are over and I'm not worried (currently at any rate) that anyone is going to being able to usurp the open Web. And that's where the corporate culture might give Microsoft some trouble, since they are very accustomed to having that high level of control and herding instead of full out leading from the front.

    However, with folks like Ray Ozzie on their team, anything is possible and I expect they will be more successful than some of the stuffier organizations like IBM, who notwithstanding their blogger-in-chief guy, just doesn't seem to understand what's happening yet.

    Best,

    Dion