Innovation

Web 2.0 Expo Europe in Berlin is over and it focused on the bubble (once again), the  crisis which can be either an obstacle or a big challenge and an opportunity.
Tim O’Reilly, the organiser of the event, talked about this current bubble. 

Tim is also the guy who created the « web 2.0″  term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web.
Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and its hosted services, such as social-networking sites, video sharing sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies. The term became notable after the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. (read this and more on Wikipedia)

At Web 2.0 Expo Europe, we noticed that there were less people attending the event than the year before. Less speakers too. Already some crisis’s effects ?
Let’s be positive.
Some caught ideas to convert the crisis into an opportunity, maybe a success (don’t forget that Microsoft launched it business during the slump, Google, MySQL, Facebook, etc.. too).
For instance, according to Tim O’Reilly, the winners and the losers will be :
Winners :
- Cloud computing
- SAAS applications like Google Apps
- Open Source software
- Companies delivering valuable services to business or consumers
- Breakthroughs in collective intelligence
- Entrepreneurs who believe so much in what they are doing that they stick to it
Losers :
- Me-too startups fueled by easy money
- Venture capitalists who invested in them.

When it’s bad time, some propositions can be the solution :
- create more value than you capture
- don’t focus on a business plan because it will change
- take care of the investors you choose to finance your company
- raise capital
- reduce costs
- be in a niche
- work on stuff that matters (help people, education, global warning, water, diseases…) and you will earn money anyway.
- improve your product
- your team and your products are your main assets…

And be optimistic !

Some interesting startups: read Techcrunch UK’s post by Mike Butcher.
Topics of this Web 2.0 Europe 2008 were also : cloud computing, mashup, widgets, connection between online and the real world, convergence, open world, quality, less emails, networks of course…. Parties too : I really enjoyed the Girl Geek Dinner and the Latecrunch !