The Future of _________?

Tumblr: If it goes open source, will fare better.
Windows Azure: Will maintain vendor lock through Windows mobile?
LinkedIn: Too limited capabilities and too many requests.
BudURL:  Service that should be provided by browser.
Aardvark: Has a future.
Lifestreaming: Not enough time to watch people go to the bathroom.
HTML5: Future in question with web being monetized.
Social media: Will die.

Via whurley at Interactive Austin 2009

Sam Lawrence – "No More Whip Cream on BS"

Despite having some problems with his presentation software, Sam Lawrence (formerly) of Jive Software gave a highly entertaining and informative keynote.

Good design is a good user experience

The "Designing the Experience" panelists focused on user experience. They showcased a few softwares, such as small business accounting software Netbooks released three weeks ago in beta, html Email marketing software Mailchimp , and Turbotax , where users can share information about taxes through Intuit's large database.  The designs were lauded for having a simple, humanized interfaces.

Keynote – Dion Hinchcliffe: "How Social Media Can Enhance Enterprise Profitability"

Dion Hinchcliffe of ZDNet's Enterprise 2.0 Blog and Hinchcliffe and Company opened the 2009 Interactive Austin conference with a presentation titled "How Social Media Can Enhance Enterprise Profitability." Below are some video excerpts from his talk.

Items related to Hinchcliffe's keynote: Linux, gaming

Hinchliffe claims more ad hoc, less hierarchical, persistent collaborations are good for business. If you think you don't have time to blog, he says, it's because you aren't blogging. Also, if you can get customers to work for you, that's a good thing. Eric Raymond's seminal article about Linux "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" seems relevant here. Hinchcliffe's talk seems based more of a Bazaar-style organization, where customers and employees have more direct access to the product or knowledge in order to improve it.

This makes me think of companies that use online gaming to monetize the contributions of customers or employees. In the game ESP , you play a guessing game with an online partner, which helps tag photos of online images for gwap.com...It seems people work best when they don't know they are working.

Getting Started

When I arrived at IA09 this morning, the line was almost spilling out of the entrance. Excited chatter reverberated around the room as attendees discussed their respective fields, exchanged ideas about social media and business, and scheduled future meetings.

Morning folks

Dion Hinchcliffe is the keynote. Questions going into the conference today...What does it mean to leverage the value of social networking for a profit? What kind of value does it have and for what kinds of ventures?

Send us your comments. What does your business hope to get from social networking?