Speakers : 5 out of 10 : Could try harder

Panels : 3 out of 10 : Too anodyne and buddy buddy

Venue: 7 out of 10 : Large arena, excellent audio visual support, easy to move from the auditorium to the networking area without disturbing the speakers

Networking: 8 out of 10: Good mix of people and some of the key european VCs are here (Advent, 3i)

Bonus points : The startup room was pretty good, each company gets 10 minutes to pitch or demo their product. The best get a main stage bit of PR this evening.

Total Downer: The wireless network is completely non-functioning, despite Loic bleating for us all to turn off skype and other peer-to-peer networking tools.

Web 2.0 page views are all social (networks)

How does Web 2.0 impact business?

Linkedin, 8.5  million users (White, English, North American)

Everyone is becoming a publisher (you’ll have a profile online)

Technology of resumes/CVs – a text document with a set of assertions (can be inaccurate and lack meta-data)

The next generation is an online document with properly linked meta-data

Search for sex on google – get sex

Search for Sex on linkedin – Get experts on gender in the workplace

If you are investing in consumer internet companies you are investing in one of the seven deadly sins

The power of blogs used by consumers

Interviewed 2000 people in 5 European countries (UK, FR, DE, ES, IT)

Over 50% of all users know about blog (but France hits 90%)

19% read blogs (France 27%)

3% contribute to blogs (France 7%)

Do we trust the press (yes, except for UK)

20% trust blogs (35% in France)

31% trust reviews on blogs, but only 11% trust  information written by a CEO (what a downer for Jonathan Schwartz)

40% of Internet users spend money using the Internet

Those that spend more have a higher trust in blogs

Over 30% of users did not buy a service based on bad ratings written by another user

52% willing to buy based on positive comments by another user

Higher spenders are more influenced by comments made by other individuals

Technorati – tracking 60 million blogs

Blogosphere continues to grow at a phenomenal rate – doubles every 150-200 days (6 months)

One new blog every second of every day

1.3 million legitimate posts everyday (created by a human being for human consumption)

Very easy to eliminate splogs

55% of all the blogs we track have been updated once in the last three months

11% of all the blog we track get updated once a week or more

Key blog languages – English 39%, Japanese 33%, Chinese 10%, Spanish 3%

Top three blogs Engadget, Boing Boing, xuijinglei (in a sea of big media)

People who ave authority post a lot

ZeFrank gives some pretty good tips on how to study. Really!

I read in Time magazine (27-Nov-2006, Dublin Edition) about silly string (you know the spray can stuff that squirts out like string). It is in demand as a trip wire detection device  in Iraq. Apparently the marines squirt it into a doorway and it hangs on tripwires without triggering the attached mine.

Seeing as how the US wants passenger manifests for all flights outbound from Europe, lets see the same thing produced for all European bound flights from the US, Miltary, CIA, Civilian or otherwise.

Can you say quid pro quo?

The Corpo cut two full traffic lanes off O’Connell St. in the last greate re-org but still no room for cycle lanes? I cycled down there for the first time this morning during rush hour and it was bloody murder. How about some joined up writing on the cycle lane front Dublin Corporation?

So the Taioseach and the Dail observe a minutes silence for the International Violence against Women day (25-Nov). But in the the same breath the Irish Times reports today (23rd November page 4) that the Sexual Assualt Treatment Unit (SATU) in Dubin, which is supposed to be manned 24×7 has been forced to close over the weekend for the past month.

So if you are raped you have to wait for up to 48 hours before you can be examined in order to collect the medical evidence that is vitally necessary in all rape prosecutions.

Hospitals say the problem is lack of funding, HSE says its lack of expert personnel.

Meanwhile women who are raped at the weekend must suffer on while somebody else sorts out this problem.