Today I traveled to Sydney, Australia for a Web 2.0 forum. Most of the top Aussie web 2.0 startups were in attendance, as well as an interesting mix of Australian business people and executives in the audience. I got the sense that Australian big business is interested in utilizing new web technologies, and I made a point of saying how innovative the current crop of aussie 2.0 startups are – and in the case of companies like Atlassian and Omnidrive, how successful they’ve been already. As in New Zealand, there are a few aussie startups that I expect to ramp up over the next 12-18 months. And I discussed how localization can play a big part in web 2.0 success in countries outside the US. Also discussed in the forum was the Web Office (takeaway: collaboration is key), how mobile technologies may make a big difference, the huge amount of web innovation happening all over the world, and much more.
Me pontificating, with microphone in hand (on the left)
All in all, I was pleased to be a part of the Sydney event and I thank Ross Dawson and his team for bringing me over. Also I met a number of R/WW readers there – and hopefully converted a few more! 🙂
I want to note that Ross Dawson, the event organizer, created a very good introduction to Web 2.0 that you may want to check out. His web 2.0 framework has pretty much all the main concepts that are part of this era of the Web. Some might say that, like many other attempts at defining web 2.0, it is over-reaching and attempts to synthesize too many concepts under the umbrella of web 2.0. But I think it is an excellent overview of what is happening in this era, certainly helping non-techs to understand it.
As I concluded in my wrapup in my last turn at the mike, it is very exciting how web 20 has hit the mainstream in 06/07 – including corporations. We’re only at the beginning of web startup success in Australia, New Zealand and indeed any non-US country (I also mentioned Europe, Asia and all the countries we’ve profiled here on Read/WriteWeb).
Pic: Nick Hodge
