bill.cava.us » gilbane

San Francisco Gilbane Conference

bill — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 16:42:46 +0000

I will be in San Francisco in two weeks (April 10 – 13) at The Gilbane Conference San Francisco and will be speaking on a panel “Web 2.0 Technologies.” My presentation “Watching the Web Take Shape” focuses on emerging trends in structured content delivery in the browser. How does this relate to Web 2.0? Over the past few years, Iâ€™ve noticed a number of interesting trends that point to a web that incorporates structure in the browser a more significant way than we’ve seen before. Although its not at the forefront of the Web 2.0 discussion, in many ways it provides the underpinnings for things like mashups and social networks.

WikiCalc Up Close

bill — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 00:13:50 +0000

WikiCalc is the latest spreadsheet software from Dan Bricklin, the creator of the first spreadsheet, VisiCalc. WikiCalc, no suprise given its name, is a social spreadsheet application (wiki meet spreadsheet). I saw him give his WikiCalc demo last night in Boston during the Web 2.0 Technologies session he and I presented at Gilbane. From a feature perspective, what impressed me most was its ability to link cells to live services (such as stock prices), but its most distinguishing feature when comparing it to Google Spreadsheet and Zoho is that it isn’t a hosted service, so you own your data.

A monolog, a dialog, a catalog

bill — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:24:10 +0000

At Gilbane San Francisco this week, I was asked what the differences between a blog, a discussion board, and a wiki are. The title pretty much gives away where the discussion wentâ€¦ but here was the thought process:

Although a blog facilitates a conversation through trackbacks, in many instances a blog serves as a soap box for a monolog. Personally, comments do not to seem to be crucial to many of the blog sites I visit.
A discussion board facilitates dialog between visitors.
A wiki facilitates creation of a catalog of information gathered across visitors.

For many of the people that came by, this metaphor seemed to help clarify things. It focuses on the mode of communication and can easily be conceptualized.

Speaking at Gilbane San Francisco 06

bill — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 15:41:33 +0000

Cool! I was justÂ invited to speak at the Gilbane Conference on the future of bloggingÂ in San Francisco this coming April. Not too sure of the format at this point, but in any event,Â it’ll be fun.