There's No PayPal for Web 2.0
Now Playing: Podtech.net InfoTalk podcast // Wayne Wonder -
I've been listening to John Furrier's Podtech.net InfoTalk podcast for a couple of weeks now. I can't remember where I first heard about it, maybe it was through Always On but he's been having great discussions on high-tech, venture capital, entrepenuers, and evrythign in between. One of the most common themes has been the emergence of Web 2.0, where cheap bandwith and OTS hardware and open-source platforms via the web, combined with bottom-up generated content via blogs, Flickr, Technorati, and del.icio.us, are creating a "perfect storm" for innovation and start-ups involved in high-tech.

There's been a fair amount of talk (nostalgia maybe?) about the good 'ol pre-bubble days thanks to the 10th anniversary of the Netscape IPO but I think the Web 2.0 idea is more than mere blog chatter. When Adam "the Podfather" Curry is talking about podcasts being the start of something new we could be skeptical. But then listen to John Furrier and his podcast guests and this theme of Web 2.0 begins to take form. This VC, as is true of almost all VCs ( don't know any personally, yet), is a comp-sci person and worked at McKinsey before entering venture capital so he knows what he's talking about. He's at the frontlines of technology, innocation, and the entrepenurial spirit. We realize that this Web 2.0 movement involves blogs and podcasts (that's all the mainstream media seems to see) but it is a much larger phenomenon than these two ingredients and its taking place right in front of eyes. Do you see it?

Okay, okay, what spawned all this crystal-ball thinking? The 8/11 podcast with venture capitalist Andreas Stavropolis of Draper Fisher Jurvetson may be one of the most insightful and forward-looking discussions of the future of the high-tech industry that I've ever heard or read. I'm usually as reluctant to use the the 'wow' as I am to use exclamation points or emoticons in email but wow may just be the best word.

Nothing that I haven't heard other guests say on the InfoTalk podcast, except for the bit about transcations via RSS (look out PayPal), and it it was this comment that made my gears starting turning over. I had just read Fortune's "Cashing in on RSS" (thanks to my new customized Google homepage for the RSS feed on this article, damn Google is good) and Kirkpatrick described "that companies will begin to figure out how to perform tasks, such as tracking inventory, using RSS feeds."

That's cool stuff and then damn, I hear this VC on the podcast say transactions via RSS and it all clicked. As part of the InfoTalk podcast's tradition is asking guests to make a prediciton on the future of the market five years out, here's Stavropolis' first of two predictions:
"You will be able to transact, you will be able to consume, and you will be able to publish across mutliple media and mutliple devices, anytime you want, where you want, what you want."

It's getting late and Wayne Wonder is on repeat in iTunes- that means it's time for bed.