Takeaways from a week in S.F.

It was an interesting week and I really do not want to go home. Thought I'd bang out one more blog post before getting on my plane. Here's a brain dump of what my conversations this week left me with:

1.  Web 2.0 is dead!
2.  Web 2.0 is alive and kicking!
3.  The Valley isn't quite sure what they really want to think about Web 2.0 but they sure love talking about it.
4.  Mobile is clearly the next frontier.
5.  Everyone has a Mac Air (supposedly it makes you more creative....no really, this has somehow been proven!)
6.  Jeff Nolan has an awesome BBQ set-up and "knows his meat"!
7.  You really can network by hanging out on University Ave. Spent a couple hours working from various locations and met at least 5 people I know. Awesome way to catch up. University Ave. is like the lobby at a tech conference.
8.  Cleantech is where it's at if you want to raise money from LP's.
9.. Everyone in the Valley talks about "being green" yet at the same time drives an SUV, has a house where a whole village could live and probably consumes more water watering their lawn than certain regions do for drinking in Africa.
10. UMTS might be coming in America.........but very slowly.
11. Facebook's fading.
12. Only VC's and geeks really know much about Twitter. As much as everyone wants to think Twitter is booming, it's not yet anywhere near mainstream.
13. Everyone is convinced though that Twitter will go mainstream. Supposedly there are people who don't get it and never will but I sure didn't meet any of them.
14. There are too many entrepreneurs (according to a couple people) who are more about partying than growing companies.
15.  Arrington sure is mentioned often. So is Scoble. (May just be the crowd I hung out with!)
16. Location Based Services will be the key to monetizing communities.
17. The Valley is still the "must-be-here" location when it comes to start-ups. Not getting around this any time soon.
18. The TV is dead. No one watches regular programming anymore.
19. U.S. based folks bitch and complain much more about conferences and things which go right and wrong at conferences in comparison with Europeans (not necessarily a bad thing).
20. It's still super hard and expensive to hire good talent in the Valley. 

Comments

[FFD]

What's your view on location-based services? It has always been the "next big thing" as far as I can remember but never really took off, which makes me think that there is something fundamentally wrong about it.

[Paul J.]

LBS has been a long time coming. I agree that it has been "the next big thing" for some time. Unfortunately, it's been an idea waiting for the technology to catch up. For LBS to truly work, you need ubiquitous broadband, i.e. UMTS on the majority of phones and available coverage. With current penetration, not enough people are yet able to take advantage of an LBS even if you make it available. My take is that we need a year or two and further penetration of devices able to take advantage of these services. I see really exciting things in connection with the next gen iPhone. I am convinced that they will be doing interesting things with that device. Other manufacturers will then follow. The carriers are also deeply incentivized to make this work so they will throw their weight at it as soon as potential competition appears.

[Mike Butcher]

Where is University Ave?
Surely Europe is going to be the hub for mobile?
"super hard and expensive to hire good talent" - sounds like London!

[Paul J.]

Mike, University Ave. goes right through the middle of Palo Alto. Can't believe you weren't there while in town. :-)

Maybe Europe will be the "hub" yet Europe as a region can't be a hub. Nowhere in Europe is there such a concentration of innovation as in the Valley. As I had written in the past, Europe first needs a real hub (one geographic area) to really compete. London is technically the European hub but I don't feel that it has anywhere near the necessary draw which the Valley has. It's hard to hire good talent anywhere but it sure is much harder to get someone young and innovative to move to London instead of the Valley. As ever more people are considering lifestyle as well as the job offer, you have to be able to offer them a balance of both. It may be a pipedream and you end up seeing all the sun in the Valley stuck in your cubicle (if you even see a window) but at least the opportunity to take advantage of it is there.

[Mike Butcher]

This is why I think we need to get onto the local government in Barcelona and make them realise they have all the elements of being Europe's hub...