Web 2.0 hype meets reality this week at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The show kicked off Wednesday evening with Microsoft talking about its new Live Mesh platform, but Thursday's session began with a trip down memory lane.
Marc Andreessen, co-creator of the Mosaic Web browser, said no one thought it would change the world back in 1993.
Marc Andreessen
It ramped really fast. We released it to about a dozen beta users. It spread almost classic viral. They spread it to 100 people, they spread it to a thousand people, they spread it to ten thousand people. By the end of '93 we probably had a million users. By the end of '94 right around when we released Netscape Navigator there were multiple millions of users.
Andressen said some big media and telecommunications companies still don't get the Web. But the browser's here to stay, becoming the center of young people's social lives through sites such as Facebook. With his current company, Ning, Andreessen is pushing social networking through the Google-backed Open Social platform.
Mozilla RAISED expectations for its upcoming mobile browser, called Fennec. (FEN - ICK) Mitchell Baker, who holds the title Chief Lizard Wrangler, said people should be able to access the Web the same way no matter where they are.
Mitchell Baker
When we use the internet what can we do with it? We should be able to access information, interact with it, manipulate it, mix it up, mash it up, save it, store it, sync it, share it. All of those things. It should be irrelevant whether I'm using a classic desktop laptop device or it's a device that has a phone on it.
She urged developers in the audience to participate in the open development of Fennec.
Yahoo CTO Ari Balogh gave an update on its open development plan.
Ari Balogh
A couple of weeks ago we announced Search Monkey and today I want to announce that we've opened up our beta for development for Search Monkey. You can sign up and start actually start building applications to start actually building applications to innovate around our search results page.
The company announced a limited beta test of a third-party developer program for its Search Monkey platform, designed to enhance users' search experience. Yahoo's also going social, with plans to use personal profiles to help users find friends, keep in touch with them and share content.
The show's packed with more than 150 exhibitors, many of them giving out anything they can to get their names out there. Fortunately, some marketing folks were collecting the free stuff right outside the convention center, to give to charity. They said they're independent marketing consultants who favor online promotion because it's less wasteful. Naturally, their van carried the names of sponsors.
For the IDG News Service I'm Nick Barber in Boston with reporting by Stephen Lawson in San Francisco.
