web 2.0 expo

Etelos brings offline data synch to Web apps

Etelos on Monday will open a limited beta for software that lets hosted application providers give their customers access to information offline.

It's called Apps on a Plane (AOP), a name that addresses a long-held limitation of Web applications. Namely, they can't be used when someone is on a plane or otherwise offline.

Company founder and Chief Technology Officer Danny Kolke said the software will synch data from an end user's computer to back-end applications when they go on and offline.

It's designed so that independent software vendors or businesses can convert existing applications to the … Read more

Web 2.0 Expo: What to watch for

On Tuesday, the Web 2.0 Expo invades San Francisco. The largest Web 2.0 conference there is--the organizers are expecting 7,000+ attendees--will inhabit the Moscone exhibit hall through Friday. Unlike smaller, more intimate conferences, there will be too much at the Expo for any one person to absorb it all. So herewith are a few things worth paying special attention to:

Keynotes to attend

Amit Mital from Microsoft will be talking up Live Mesh (see "What's in Ray Ozzie's Mesh?") at 5:00 PM Wednesday. It looks like this product will be the talk … Read more

What's in Ray Ozzie's Mesh?

While Microsoft eventually hopes its Live Mesh effort will be a way for people to share data across all of their devices, the service that launches next week will be limited in several ways, CNET News.com has learned.

Next week, Microsoft will launch a pre-beta "technology preview" open to about 10,000 testers in the U.S., according to a source familiar with the company's plans.

File synchronization is an important component of Mesh, but not its only feature, the source said. Developers will be able to write their own applications for Live Mesh, with the … Read more

Version 3.0 of Webware 100 is already under way

Thanks to the readers who contributed to the Webware 100 challenge in order to get a free all-access pass to Web 2.0 Expo, we now have a bunch of really good ideas for improving the Webware 100 awards program for 2009.

The two winning ideas (that are getting passes to the show) are:

1. Allow nominees to submit screencasts. I love this. We'll limit the pitches to 30 seconds, and we'll only ask for them from the finalists (not all the nominees), but this will be a great way to add some depth to the voting process. … Read more

Win an all-access pass to Web 2.0 Expo

Web 2.0 Expo starts in San Francisco on April 22. It's the biggest Web 2.0 show there is, and Webware will be there in force, scouring the show looking for new companies, interviewing the architects of Web 2.0 companies, and celebrating the winners of the Webware 100, which we announce on April 21, right before the show opens. (Webware is a partner of the Web 2.0 Expo.)

As I've posted before, you can get a free exhibit pass, which also gets you in to the keynotes, by using the code "websf08pb6" at … Read more

Digerati discuss future of tech conferences

It seems that the future of tech conferences is on a lot of people's minds these days.

On Friday, I ran a story here about how to survive and thrive in the so-called "Conference 2.0" era. The idea being that even as a multimedia backchannel made up of live, online chat on services like Twitter, IM, Meebo, and others proliferates at conferences and makes audience members feel empowered to demand more direct participation in keynotes and panel discussions, it doesn't have to be a disruptive force.

In fact, experts I talked to for the story … Read more

The green(er)ing of Web 2.0 Expo

As someone who attends a fair number of conferences in many different cities, it's become painfully clear to me that, in general, the confabs' organizers have not yet climbed fully aboard the green train.

That is to say, conferences are often not the best examples of a focus on taking care of the environment.

For example, while I was told at the recent South by Southwest that its efforts to be green were improved from a year earlier, the endless sea of attendee bags on display--each with a small mountain of literature inside--was a visceral testament to the fact … Read more

Webware + Web 2.0 Expo: It just had to happen

On Monday when we launch the voting for the Webware 100 awards, we're also going to go live with our partnership with the Web 2.0 Expo. This event, which starts on April 22, is the biggest Web 2.0 show there is, and we're thrilled that Webware and the Webware 100 will be part of it.

CNET, Webware's publisher, is no stranger to running big awards programs. We also run the Best of Show Awards at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

We will announce the Webware 100 winners on April 21, the day … Read more

Yoono jumps into group-annotation fray

Yoono is soon to release a new annotation tool for their recommendation-and-bookmarking service. Called Buzz It, the new functionality will be part of Yoono's installable toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer. Buzz It closely rivals the usefulness and functionality of Clipmarks, and Grouptivity--giving users a way to archive and share content they find on the Web. The company was showing it off in the exhibition floor at this week's Web 2.0 Expo.

Clicking the new Buzz It button displays a dialogue box that lets you pull in various pieces of media, from whichever page you're viewing, into what Yoono calls a "memo." You can share each memo with others either by posting the memo to your blog or by sending it via e-mail. If you don't already have a blog, Yoono provides all its users with their own pages, complete with an RSS feed, to keep track of all bookmarked and noted items

Users also get a contextual menu option on any Web page to add a link or entire story to one of their memos. This eliminates the need to use bookmarkets or the Yoono toolbar itself.

This new feature reminds me a lot of Grouptivity, which I looked at yesterday. What Yoono has done very well, however, is to give people the option to bookmark several items at once and send those all in a single e-mail. I was pleased to find that instead of having to dig up e-mail addresses, Yoono had integrated Plaxo-like functionality to let you grab your contact lists from a number of e-mail providers. There's also a neat "save to my computer" option, which will export your selections into an HTML file you can open in any browser.

There are a ton of these personal annotation and recommendation tools cropping up, including del.icio.us', StumbleUpon,, and share2me, to name a few. While it's unfair to say there can only be one, Yoono's effort is very user friendly. To get notified of the public launch of the Buzz It-enabled Yoono, there's a sign-up on Yoono's blog.

More shots after the jump.

Top 5 from Web 2.0 Expo

The first Web 2.0 Expo is behind us, and it was a good show. In addition to dozens of interesting panels (including, if I do say so, mine), there were about 115 companies presenting on a crowded expo show floor, and six interesting company presentations during the "Launchpad" sessions that ran on Monday and Tuesday.

With Webware.com's Josh Lowensohn and News.com's Erica Ogg, we picked our Top 5 Web 2.0 services from the conference. They are:

Tellme, which has a new downloadable app for getting useful 411-like info on your mobile phone. ( … Read more