The Future of Web Apps (FOWA) is...well, here's a starter for 10

Attending the FOWA08 (Future of Web Apps) London conference this year, impressions on Day One was that I heard very little I’ve not heard before – an indication that the Web 2.0 market is maturing I think, or maybe that now that everyone is on systems like Twitter the “real” news is moving very fast globally. I felt Day Two had more “new” ideas floating round, especially welcome in my view was Tim Bray’s reality check about the situation occurring in the surrounding ecosystem.

Reflecting back on the 2 days, here’s what I took away from the Future Zeitgeist of Web Apps, looking at trends and memes that echoed across the presentations:

1. The rise of Social Media Middleware

There were 2 talks, by Kevin Marks of Google and then by David Recordon of Six Apart, outlining the technology stack by which the social network silos will have your graph, data and activity sucked out into an open environment. Which made me curious about Google’s motivation, so I asked the 3rd person talking about this here, Chris Messina, about the risk that this just replaces Other Peoples SocNets with the Googlebook . Chris was fairly upfront – to summarise, they know they have a tiger by the tail, but it’s a very useful tiger.

2. Communification – or the flight to safer (Telco) harbours

Crick Waters of Ribbit and Tim Bray of Sun both made the same point in essence – the Telco market is a £1.3 trillion market (that was big number until we saw what the £$%^ banks managed to blow ) and people will give up poking and LOLcatting each other long before they hand over their telephone and broadband IP connection. Julie Meyer likewise chose to highlight SpinVox, a voice based startup.

3. The Web 2.0 crowd rediscover Good Old Telco Know How

Related to this - there were talks from Dopplr on it all being about messaging, from Blaine Cook on how Jabber can be utilized, both in essence dealing with something any infrastructure layer ‘Nethead has known for 15 years at least – the future of web apps is actually driven by the capability of the underlying platforms. I think the whole "next generation platform" story is a growing area, we've done quite a bit of work in it over the last year or so. I expect it to be one of the big things that come out during the recession.

4. Cloud Computing tried to take off, but still just bumped along runway

The continual attempt to kick start the Cloud Computing world sputtered on – there were a number of sessions on Cloud and related areas, and while everyone agreed it was going to be A Good Thing, the questions were generally going after the weaknesses. I eventually (after some microphone problems) got the Amazon and XCalibre guys to note they were actually working on hybrid systems that mixed cloud and standalone systems.

Jason Calacanis put the nail in Cloud 08’s attempt to fly when he said it was a great idea but still a bit early.

5. The One Slide Pitch to a VC

Jason Calacanis nailed it again in the TechCrunch Challenge – if you have a slide sowing rapid growth, you don’t need anything else. If you don’t, its going to be tough. Julie Meyer said similar things. Nic “Traction” Brisbourne has been saying that for pretty much as long as I’ve known him.

6. The Future of the Mobile Web is still in the Future

iPhone, Android, etc – exciting stuff, still small markets. Look in again Same Time, next Year.

7. Mark Zuckerberg is what they say he is

Facebook founder – his talk has been covered multiple times, and he said little new if you follow the space - the thing that I found fascinating was his view on the Moore’s law of privacy. I wrote a longer piece about this earlier - see here. (There are links to longer articles about the interview there too, if you are interested). Bigger picture - its squaring up to a big competition between walled gardens, Gogle and open systems (see No 1 above), and this guy sounds as uncompromising as Gates' Microsoft ever did in its heyday.

8. Kathy Sierra is more than the sum of her parts

Kathy pulled off something unique – being inspirational and fact based at the same time. This is the dose of rationality missing in too many Web 2.0 dreams. She appealed to the heart through the head. Why, oh why, did this woman have to stop blogging. Come the revolution, I know who I’d shoot…..

9. Enterprise 2.0 is deeply unsexy

Enterprise 2.0 – a few lonely bleats in the conference, a few more companies exhibiting – drowned in the push to build smart systems that mainly shunt dumb tat to consumers. But its time will come, after all, Enterprises have money.

10. The Empty Chair at the Feast

Only one pitch the entire time on the rise of Web TV, whereas for the 2 days Web TV camera crews were zooming around interviewing people and publishing the videos on websites near and far. Likewise, Carsonified was whipping up conference presentations as fast as they could beat the post-processing monkey, and the mob that showed up for the Diggnation event made a Saturday night down the Southend Pier look positively demure. Kosso's Phreadz has all the talks up on a FOWA channel - here's Tim Bray's talk

On the Friday evening I tagged along with Intruders TV while they filmed RedditNation and Seedcamp advisor Alex Hoye, and saw various Tuttlers in the Sacred Enclosure at the Afterparty (a roped off enclosure replete with bouncers at a Web Apps Conference?. The times they are a' changing.....) filming away for Web TV shows.

In fact, there was more airtime given to LOLcats than the whole broadband video / web TV scene – interesting, as elsewhere there was much hand wringing about whether one needed to be in Silicon Valley to be successful, and the speakers (London & NY people) both come from cities with extremely strong video medium cultures. Hint to London - compete on your strengths! Update - this is what I'm talking about)

But as always, a really great event – Kudos to the Carsonified team for pulling it off with aplomb. The only suggestion I’d make on the event front is check up on who we are sharing the venue with – running a gauntlet of artificial bonhomie from relentlessly cheerful revivalist religionists before the first coffee of the day puts even the sunniest disposition into Bah! Humbug! mode