It’s hard to believe that it’s been a week since the NewNew Internet Conference. Hat’s off to Jim and the rest of the Executive Biz Team for putting on a great event. There are many very creative people working on emerging software and service businesses here in the DC Region, and it was terrific to see some of them showcased in this event. For those of you that didn’t make the event, we hope to see you there next year.

One of the interesting things about the event was the Technology Showcase, which highlighted a group of innovative companies. The showcase got a great deal of traffic, and I understand that for many of the attendees it was a good source of business leads. I and my co-judges, Phil Bronner, Charles Curran, Karl Khoury and Tom Weithman, were tasked with selecting four Technology Pace Setters to present a short overview of their companies during the event.

The four winners we selected were:

Attensa – a world class RSS reader that solves the problem of synchronizing your feeds among multiple platforms, and also has shared intelligence technology, so that “group wisdom” can be applied to news feeds over an enterprise. You should check this application out – I particularly liked the idea that within an enterprise a user could get a sense of which feeds were drawing the most attention.

Hook Mobile – an innovative application of MMS message delivery and content aggregation, to create a new class of collectible and redeemable content on cellular phones. You will see Hook’s technology starting to pop up in some interesting places this Fall. If you don’t have a multimedia cellular phone yet, perhaps you should get one.

iBelong Networks – an enabler of social networks for any portal or affiliate group, with a set of functionality and tools that allow the user to join and create new communities on a permanent or ad hoc basis. If you have a static web portal, or have an enterprise wide intranet, iBelong is definitely a place you should check out to add community functionality to your web based communication. As an aside, my fund Amplifier Venture Partners has deployed iBelong’s technology to create the Amplifier Netw ork, an on-line community around the fund, and we have been very happy with the result.

Notefish – a search and collection application that allows users to cut and paste search results into link-sustained content, that can then be shared. Notefish was also selected by the attendees of the event as the “Company most likely to change the Web 2.0 world.” Not only is Notefish’s application cool, the founders are great guys. They have built their business the old fashioned way (or the new fashioned way, if you heard Mike Arrington’s talk at the event), by working nights and weekends.

One of the things that struck the judges was that each of these companies were applying in different ways the principal that collaboration matters – it creates better intelligence, better content, and ultimately something more valuable for the user. You could certainly call these companies “Web 2.0”, but perhaps it’s better just to call them well thought through.

I’d like to thank everyone who came to the event yesterday and hope you found it insightful. Please definitely continue to provide feedback – the best way to do that going forward is to send an e-mail to info@executivebiz.com.

The discussion about Web 2.0 for business will continue, as it has prior to yesterday. I’d encourage you to begin visiting any of the respected speakers’ blogs and websites.

You can also get some additional post analysis commentary and special footage on my blog. Browse around the site to see if there is anything you like and if so, consider subscribing to it via RSS or e-mail.

And finally, stay tuned to future New New Internet events…the next one will cover IPv6.

Until then,

Ken Yarmosh, TECHNOSIGHT

Andrew McAfee – Harvard Business School Professor – is talking about a term he helped coin, “Enterprise 2.0”.

He notes, “Web 2.0 is not a revolution…revolutions are usually very violent and very quick…we are undergoing a transformation…we don’t know how long its going to take.”

Two transformations have occurred: one on the Internet and one in the enterprise.

Inside the enterprise, managers have been ganging up on pushing new technology on users.

Web 2.0 is successful because technologists figured out what users wanted:

1. To interact w/each other

2. As little structure as possible during interaction and use of technology

...and the result was that

3. The outcome of getting out of the way does not mean chaos

On the enterprise side, for the first time, all three constituents of technology have begun working together: managers, technologists, and users. Enterprise 2.0 does not equal blogs plus wikis behind the firewall. That is entirely too limiting.

Uncertainties

What is the appropriate role of the management constituency in Enterprise 2.0?

How big does an organization need to be to tap into all the good things that would come with Enterprise 2.0?

Trends

- Rates of innovation are going to be very high.

- Bridging the gap between current established infrastructure and the less structured collaboration of new web.

Check out Andrew’s Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration.

Here is some footage from Rajen’s discussion this morning...these particular clips focus on tags and privacy:

Mike Arrington – the founder of the popular blog TechCrunch - realizes that he either has the best or worst time to speak…he’s speaking while people are chowing down on lunch. He begins his discussion with a disclaimer, “The best entrepreneurs never listen to anybody”.

What’s Different from Web 1.0

Slow Apps vs. Javascript/AJAX/Flash Apps

One-way vs. Two-way

IPO for Billions vs. Sell for Millions

Beg for PR vs. News Spreads Virally

Recycling 1999 Ideas Isn’t Stupid

Technology can make old ideas successful…and now, there are better ways to pay for services (PayPal), monetize content (AdSense), and distribute information (RSS).

Some of the Winners

Mike defines a winner as a company who sold their business…Writely, Newroo, Delicious, Weblogs Inc., MySpace, and Skype are some of them.

Future winners include: Digg, Facebook, Youtube, Netvibes, Zoho Projects, Photobucket, PlentyofFish, Netvibes, and StumbleUpon

Facebook is probably worth $2b…MySpace should be scared of them. PlentyofFish is Match.com but free and its a one man show…the guy running it is making $300k/month.

Some of the Losers

Mike says he isn’t proud that some of these companies exist, although they might be financially successful in the long run:

Inform, Gather, PubSub, and JigSaw

Opportunity Areas

Platforms, Port Desktop Apps to Web, Office Efficiency, Cloud Storage, identity, Developer Tools, Enterprise

Mike admits that TechCrunch is very consumer facing, as was his discussion but he says he will be launching a new blog with an Enterprise focus in the next couple of weeks. Since everything he touches seems to be successful, definitely stay tuned to his blog.

update: super-hero Jason Goldberg not only did interviews all day, he also was live blogging…here is his write-up of Mike’s talk.

Rajen Sheth was on fire today…as were some of the Google Data centers he showed us in his presentation. Fortunately, Google is prepared for such events.

One of the nuggets that I think folks will take away from his talk was that software-as-a-service – SaaS - allows companies to focus on business and not on infrastructure. Instead of having to focus on the technology – installing, maintaining, etc. – they can use hosted services that just work.

Going back to 1997, he spoke about initial user testing of Google, “Users just sat there…they were still waiting for the page to load.” But Rajen’s point is that simple (especially a simple interface) does not infer simplicity.

Google is close to building a full office suite…that exists totally on the web. Rajen spoke to the fact that Google actually uses its own technology – search, online apps like Gmail and Blogger, and otherwise - to run its intranet:

I have 42,000 e-mails in my inbox…using 3 GB of space…I never delete them…I can access e-mails from several years ago. I have 100,00 documents on my laptop.

Search as a navigation paradigm was definitely harped on, and that makes sense, coming from Google. The sheer number of data Rajen has in his inbox and on his laptop are only possible with search.

Some interesting stats, which is probably why Google has focused on building Google Apps for Your Domain: 33% of businesses use an ASP (think SalesForce.com) and 22% will do so in the next two years.

Hosted (or “ASP”) services make sense for businesses, especially for small businesses. Considering the sheer number of them out there, Google, SalesForce, thinkfree, and others are likely going to have growing user bases.

Brian Williams – the CEO of Viget Labs - is a partner of ExecutiveBiz (the organizers behind TNNI). He was kind to spare a couple of minutes to tell us about the motivation of TNNI, as well as what Viget Labs is all about.

Jason Goldberg – the CEO of Jobster – is giving his introduction about “What Web 2.0 is”. He has a very simple definition for it:

Web 1.0 = Get it Online

Web 2.0 = Make it Work

According to Jason, Web 2.0 goes beyond being online…it solves business problems. He asks, “How many people have gone to the public library in the last month?” A smattering of hands raised….”how many people have searched Google in the last day?” Everyone raises their hands. People turn to the web first.

Many technologies are having an impact beyond the tech savvy…225 million users and 74% adults are online.

Kids are finding friends and interacting in a whole new way (e.g., MySpace, Facebook, etc.)...it’s the new socialization of young people….dramatic shift in consumer behavior. Advertisers have turned to the Internet as a primary means to reach consumers, especially the younger demographic.

“The new Internet is created for the people, by the people, every single day…the new Internet is being created in a very active way [and he points to YouTube, Digg, and other sites based around participation].”

Jason believes there are better business models, better user experience, and more disruptive technologies…which differentiates the new web from the goldrush that occurred back in 1999.

There was a disparate experience in 1999…community, commerce, content, and advertising were not connected [he shows four separated puzzle pieces]...now, they are.

Content is much more specific…creating new expertise from the bottom-up.That ties into what Jason does for a living – running Jobster. Blogs, for example, can be a goldmine for finding great talent. 

There are many positives but there are new cautions…what you publish online will be found. Jason shows a very funny clip from the Glenn Beck Show…where he pulled up some info about Glenn’s intern Claire.

Jobster has worked collaboratively with its users. “How many people have received jobs through a referral?” Job boards are Web 1.0…and they are stuck there. “Referrals and social networking provide 3x the sourcing value of general job boards.”

“It’s not a job board…we incorporate a variety of Web 2.0 technologies…to better make career matches…we are Google for job search.”

update: Jason provided this clip from the Glen Beck interview

Secretary of Technology for Virginia Aneesh Chopra is telling us about his vision for the state of Virginia’s website, “we embrace Web 2.0 not by words but by actions.” He made the point, “we need to build a sense of community” on the web. Right now, admits Mr. Chopra, our site is relatively Web 1.0…his vision is to make it more than just links.

It’s 8:27 am and the room is a buzz. I’ve already had some great conversations with several of the Technology Showcase competitors. I had a long talk with ThinkFree - a web office service – and KnowNow – an alerts based system designed for the enterprise. Both were very impressive…check them out.