• FindLaw
• Legal Technology Center
• Articles, White Papers, Press Releases

The Next Big What?

By Eric Sinrod

(December 11, 2007) - I am fresh back from attending the Venture Summit West conference hosted by AlwaysOn at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, CA - just over the hill from Silicon Valley. Boldly promoted as "the most powerful gathering of investment stars on the planet," the hype in some respects was deserved, as impressive tech movers and shakers strutted their stuff and shared their ideas and predictions.

Some of the early discussion centered on whether the Internet is potentially headed for another downturn. Indeed, security analysts and media pundits were previously criticized for not foreseeing the prior Internet stock bubble. The question was raised whether ostrich heads are in the sand again. Not surprisingly, there was no clear consensus on this point, with some participants expressing the view that Internet stocks are overvalued, and others opining that there is ample value underpinning certain Internet properties.

There was also talk of a tech IPO slowdown. But that was countered by the point that VMWare had a very successful IPO last summer during the typical IPO doldrums.

While the conversation moved around, there was some buzz around the notion that online video is becoming hot ala YouTube, etc. The point was made that practically everyone is getting into the act, using tiny video devices to upload all sorts of content onto the Internet, and that this must be the wave of the future.

However, one participant noted that online video has been deemed the "coming wave" for more than a decade, and another stated that US viewers are accustomed to high production quality from shows such as Lost and will demand and go to such quality in terms of persistency.

There seemed to be consensus that media phenomena such as American Idol are brilliant, in that they create an interactive experience (voting for contestants), enlist viewers into the process of creating stars and hits, which in turn leads consumers to go out and pay to see the stars and buy their music.

Not surprisingly, interactive experience discussions bled over into the topic of games, virtual worlds and social networking. Craig Sherman, the CEO of Gaia Online, for example, explained that while games such as World of Warcraft are pure fantasy and totally immersing, social networking sites such as Facebook connect people but do not really involve a truly "in world" type experience, as one would find in a virtual world. Gaia Online, like other virtual worlds such as Second Life, blends the social networking of Facebook-type sites with the fantasy aspects of fantasy game sites, creating a full living experience in an online world through a person's visual representation, called an avatar.

And while all of these subjects were being discussed, there was an explicit and underlying theme of "show me the money." The explicit theme had to do with prognosticating on which "big thing" the money will flow towards in the future. The underlying theme related to the fact that start up companies were pitching their products and ideas in the hopes that the interest of VCs would be piqued.

Overall, there was a healthy level of adrenaline and can-do attitude at the conference. While I did not come away feeling that we are back in the go-go days of the late-90s, I did sense that lessons from the dot-bomb have been learned, and that the movers were shaking with fairly clear eyes and realism toward the future.

Tech is here to stay and will take us into more interesting places in the years to come. Long live tech!

Hardware

© 2007 FindLaw