Future of Web Apps Summit - San Francisco, CA.

This past week I attended the Future of Web Apps summit in San Francisco, California with a group of people from several AOL offices. Got a chance to meet a few new faces and reconnect with some familiar ones.

Though there wasn't much emphasis on the "future", there were some good take-aways regarding the current state of web development, innovation and business strategy. The most prominent of those seemed to be that the "Web Now" (as opposed to much-reviled "2.0") landscape is healthy and alive, buoyed by the sense that the consensus strategy this time around has supplanted ego and greed with the more progressive caution and logic.

There was an underlying current that this mini-bubble could, in fact, burst, but it didn't appear to concern attendees. Stakes are considerably lower this time around and the web has effectively proven it's worthiness. My only overarching though here is that instead of a bubble bursting, it will be more like sifting for gold. The tailings (unsuccessful ideas) will wash down stream while the solid gold nuggets remain in the shaker screen for further examination.

Highlight speakers were perennial circuit speaker and design-guru Jeff Veen, Dropsend/Amigo stakeholder and summit organizer Ryan Carson, Dogster's passion-centric leader Ted Rheingold, Yahoo's engaging social-software rep Tom Coates and Digg's visionary and founder Kevin Rose.

Some key points:

Kevin Rose (Digg):

• You can build a business improving on and converging existing ideas
• Build an application cheaply through Open Source, Bidded Talent, Low-Cost Hosting
• Word of mouth alone can make you
• Give developers and designers free reign to explore

Tom Coates (Yahoo):

Motives for Social interaction:

Individual:
• Individual motive=individual gets derived value
• Social value=contributions provide value to users
• Business value=aggregate value

Community Motives:
• Anticipated reciprocity
• Reputation
• 'Sense of Efficacy' - having an effect on the world
• ID within a group

Ted Rheingold (Dogster/Catster):

Passion-centric communities:
• Amplifying passion through an enriched community experience
• Define your experience akin to your high school locker
• Location-based communities will meet wherever they are (online/offline)
• Core components: Entertainment, Sociality, Services, Information

links:
http://www.deviantart.com
http://www.fabsugar.com
http://www.modelmayhem.com
http://www.famster.com
http://www.cuteoverload.com

Ryan Carson (DropSend/Amigo):

14 Things I'd Wish I'd Known Before Building a Web App:
1. Work with people in the same timezone (or you'll be up all hours)
2. One user database (or you will be doing double the work)
3. One ecommerce system (see above)
4. Don't have your coder do the xhtml/css (three people: back-end / front-end / designer)
5. Obsess about your website copy (get it right to eliminate redundancy)
6. Work with a top notch hardware partner
7. Don't cut corners
8. Measure and measure more
9. You aren't done when you launch
10. Teaspoons  (the little things that add up, i.e. FAQ, Help, spellchecking, etc.)
11. He cheats here (4 tips in 1):  make a press kit (logos, release letters, etc), use a monthly csv for invoices, add an About Us page, make contact easy
12. Add tons of stuff to your faq and support pages
13. Be nice to your nasty customers
14. Tips from the pros - here Ryan provided some quotes from other speakers at the conference

links:
http://www.dropsend.com
http://www.heyamigo.net
http://www.mutado.com

Jeff Veen (Google/Adaptive Path):

• Use visual design to build trust with users, empowering them to control their data
• Use good design to improve and enhance the data

4 Principles of Interaction Design:
• Discoverability - making finding stuff easy
• Recoverability  action should be without cost
• Context - a sense of time place and meaning (amazon checkout)
• Feedback  - system response

links:
program doc:
http://www.veen.com/nextgen.pdf

http://del.icio.us/veen
http://www.flyspy.com
http://www.farecast.com

Flickr photos from me, Tom Osbourne and other conference attendees:
Link