Semantics Incorporated: Will We Soon See a Rally on Web 3.0 Start-Ups? My Take on Semantic Tech

Description

About 3 weeks ago, I left a warm Canadian sun to fly south to San Jose's chilly weather, and attend the Semantic Technology conference . Or, let's be fair, 1.5 days out of the five the event lasted. The rest, mostly, I followed through Twitter, which by all accounts tends to be a little like watching the Olympics on TV, as opposed to being in the stadium: you don't get the pop corn and hot dog breeze, but in the end you know more about the games than people who were there (and not on Twitter too... it gets quickly confusing.)

Of course, the big objective at "Sem Tech" is networking. Thanks to the nice folks of Semantic Universe (thank you Eric and Steve), I managed to make it, last minute, onto the exclusive list of VC Connect, a cocktail reception which gathered both fundraising CEOs and investors (of whom more attended than I thought there would be. I guess the free hors d'oeuvres did the trick). I stroke most great conversations there (apologies to those I met outside of VC Connect!)

So, briefly, my impressions of the event. I know those are late but I'm not competing with news organizations, just with analysts, so that's ok!

Overall, it was sort of "hot and cold": there were lots of very positive signs and, by all admissions, there is still a lot to do before Web 3.0 and the Semantic Web truly happen.

Key mental notes I made to myself:

Fully endorsed : all the godfathers are now at the table. This event marked the first participation of Google, confirming the company's mood reversal after the tough words Eric Schmidt had for the field a while back. Anyway, what matters is that the 800-pound gorilla now sits next to Yahoo's ...

Original URL

http://www.semanticsincorporated.com/2009/07/will-we-soon-see-a-rally-on-web-30-startups-my-take-on-semantic-tech.html

http://www.semanticsincorporated.com/2009/07/will-we-soon-see-a-rally-on-web-30-startups-my-take-on-semantic-tech.html