Videos from web 2.0 Summit

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Som tidigare annonserats har Linden Labs och IBM har inlett ett samarbete för att möjliggöra rörlighet mellan olika virtuella världar. Idag kan jag inte flytta mina pengar, kläder eller andra tillgångar från en virtuell miljö till en annan. Läs mer på Internetworld.

"Reality is broken"

One of the best sessions at the Web 2.0 Summit was the 10 minute session with game designer Jane McGonigal. She is a ubiquitous game designer, a games researcher, and a futures forecaster. She is my new idol and will follow her new projects closely.

This was her perspective: instead of thinking about how to make virtual reality more like real life, think about making real life more like games. Why? Because games, networked games specifically, work better than real life. She coined the term "reality is broken".

Why?

1. Games come with better instructions; you have a clear goal, and other people share information on how to succeed.
2. Games give you better feedback on your performance in the form of scores and ratings, plus they provide an audience that’s tuned into your success.
3. Games offer better community—everybody’s agreed to same rules and narrative, and you share a heroic sense of purpose.

You should take these lessons and apply them elsewhere in order to capture the attention of a “huge new market of non-gamers.”

Some articles on Jane McGonigal:
cnet Future games to harness players' collective wisdom
Wired Ask a Scientist: Jane McGonigal

Forget platforms (already?) - data is hot!

In the panel on "The semantic web (semantic=there is meaning in the data)" at the Web 2.0 Summit, the speakers, including legendary Danny Hillis, presented some new services that can organize information from a semantic perspective. The service I was most impressed with was twine. It can provide you with a unified view of "everything you know". Nova Spivack, the founder, showed the service for the first time today I am sure we will hear more about it.

The semantic web is sometimes referred to as Web 3.0. The web is the platform where all the valuable data is embedded. You just have to extract it in a smart way. An example would be Google PagerRanks which extracts its meaning from the links on the web. More on the subject in this podcast with Nova Spivack.

In a really thought provoking article, Scott Karp discusses the idea of data: "Forget Platforms And Applications, Data Is The Real Asset On the Web" .

"Applications — the front end technology — are no longer the core business asset, at least not in the long term. It’s way too easy for anyone to clone anyone else’s application.

And that means applications built on another service’s platform aren’t the real asset either — it’s too easy to reproduce. Just watch MySpace’s platform catch up with Facebook’s platform.
So what is the business asset? The users — and their data. The “social graph” is what drives value for users on Facebook. They have all their data on Facebook. Their friends have all their data on Facebook. That’s it. Done. The users are happy. They’re locked in, but they DON’T CARE.

Facebook isn’t building its business around apps — it’s building it around data — by making that data hugely valuable to advertisers.

The most successful companies on the web are those that created a virtuous cycle between their users and their database, where the more data users put in, the more value they get out. That’s the essence of Web 2.0. Data has limited value locally, or walled off on a single site".

Game Legends Live on stage

I must admit this was one of the highlights of the Web 2.0 Summit. Listening to the panel on gaming with Robert Kotick, CEO of Activision (Creator of guitarhero!) and Trip Hawkins, CEO of Digital Chocolate (and founder of Electronic Arts!).

Hawkins, an advocate of casual gaming, claims we are headed toward a world of immersive, social content. A world in which content isn’t something that we pay to watch or listen to, but something we pay to participate in–a social experience.

Life is a game

Here is an excellent example of "life as a game". Michelle plays "My car is a video game" (to see how far she can go on one tank of gas). "Hence, I must continually beat my high score, which right now is 52.4 MPG for a whole tank." Read more.

I always do this, but my Saab 9.5 does not give me the same type of feedback as her car.

Competition between email and social networks

(this image has nothing to do with the WSJ article)

Will Social Features Make Email Sexy Again?

Prediction: This article in the Wall Street Journal will be discussed and cited by a lot of people in the coming weeks.