You’re a nobody if you don’t have an iBook and a Treo

Yes, I am at the Web2.0 conference this week and I must say it has been very good – I could write several pages. Total A list of technologists and business leaders. My lunch table today – Ron Burgess, Tim O’Reilly, Mitch Kapor, Doug Carlston and Dan Gillmor. Too bad the room was so loud and I missed the good stuff.

Anyway, the big theme of the conference is that leading companies should open up their core competencies via loosely-coupled API and RSS syndication to allow new distribution models and product offerings. Basically the web services vision of 2001 + RSS and now featuring tangible proof of modest success – Amazon, eBay, Google. What I am still struggling with is the value for non .com companies. What is the value for a manufacturer? A real estate developer? Pretty thin.

Another big theme is China. I have not been there but from the tone of Mary Meeker – it’s their century to lose. Bill Janeway of Warburg (who cracked a private jet joke that went completely over the audience’s head (such a rarefied world) claims they have done more deals in China in the last 18 months than in the US.