Thanks to the short notice of Johanna I could attend an inspiring little gathering called “Web Montag” (web monday) in the premises of Socialtext in Palo Alto. Unfortunately, I arrived a bit late as I was traveling by public transport (which was not such a good idea, will rent a car starting tomorrow ;). Also, I was quite in a hurry making it back to Berkeley on time. Nonetheless I learned about some interesting new things brewing in the “Web 2.0” space.
Gernot Poetsch is currently developing a MacOS “Leopard” based rich client aggregator which is capable of handling multimedia feeds (anticipated release is in early 2007).
Eugene Eric Kim presented HyperScope, a project that builds on the ideas behind Doug Engelbert’s first hypertext system (NLS/Augment) and promises to enable better deep linking in hypertext documents (among others). Mark Wubben quickly demoed Plazes and how it could leverage RFID (synergies to Christof Roduner‘s research in the area of ubiquitous computing?). I missed the presentation about mnemomap, but from what I can judge this looks like a very interesting project too. Note that some of the projects are looking for contributors!
Read more about the event in the summary by Peter Kaminski and Mark Wubben.
[Update: Germans interested in the “Web 2.0” might also be interested in attending the “Web 2.0 – the next generation” conference at the University of St.Gallen on Oct 4, 2006. As a side note, I can’t help feeling that “Web 2.0”, as usual with “technologies” (it’s more of a buzzword than a specific technology, actually) entering the hype curve, are highly overrated in the short run (i.e. right now), but probably underrated regarding long term implications]