But seriously, isn’t it about time?  Web 1.0 was mostly a bunch of fluffy e-commerce sites and web 2.0 did improve on that.  Web 2.0 is/was a bunch of fluffy fluff.   — that’s innovation for you!

Traditionally this has been a stimulating evening of VCs looking over the horizon at trends. Last night it was so boring that I left halfway through.

These guys sound like bankers and college professors reporting on activities that they are watching but not involved in. I think that the top trend is that VC is irrelevant. These guys are not doing startups so they really don’t see what is going on. Startups are getting the job done without them.

Thus, they seem to be struggling for relevance. For instance, there was much discussion of new category cellphones. Let’s face it this trend came from an outsider to the industry. — Apple. VCs and existing phone companies missed it. Roger McNamee and Elevation have invested to try and save Palm. I think Palm is hopeless. Jon Rubinstein (former head of the iPod division at Apple) cannot revive it.

Their take on data privacy and silos of proprietary data is a shrug. This is a huge issue for interoperability as well as privacy and their opinion was that “it will all work out.”

I agree with their view on the impact of new phones as computers to the third world, but this all obvious.

Joe Shoendorf made a big deal about a drinking water shortage as a separate trend from Global Warming. WTF? Have you noticed that much of the world’s water comes from snow packs and glaciers that are being melted by Global Warming?

This is pathetic.

Just talked with John Markoff from the NYTimes as well as the SFChronicle reporter and a couple of panelists

Dean of Stanford Law School

It is interesting that the FCC invited Comcast, Verizon, and Pando networks to appear at the session and they all declined. To me that means that they oppose neutrality in spite of any PR to the contrary.

Larry Lessig is speaking. Ah now we have content. You won’t be surprised to learn that his Power Point is another of his trademarked turbo-text presentations.

Larry’s message is simple. Don’t let the providers change the network unless they can prove it will harm no one. The FCC has failed in its policy. They have let Comcast and others change the network to the damage of the consumer. — extreme laughter from audience and squirming from the table of FCC technotards!

As it turns out the ENTIRE FCC commission is here. Rather than a fuzzy photo from me you can see their website photo.

Jason Devitt CEO, Skydeck

Gave a wonderfully cogent argument for the need for neutrality on wireless networks as well.  The comparison be the openness of your laptop and cellphone are laughable.  He predicts that when laptops have 3G modems built it will become common practice to be harassed on setup to signup with a cell provider for 3G.  Why? Because the commision on a new signup will exceed the profit on the manufacturing of the laptop.

Then there is the Al Gore Keynote. They are paying him $100k for the speech. Did he invent encryption as well as the Internet?

Tuesday Update

Expo badge holders can attend “All” keynotes unless they are on Tuesday.   But they can watch the live streaming of them, even if they are half empty.  I suspect this is because of the talk by Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff.  It’s hard to believe he has anything more to say about cybersecurity than his predecessor Tom Ridge.    Several years ago I heard Ridge give a detailed, but incoherent presentation at a tech symposium on “interoperability” of emergency systems.   — turns out he was talking about firehoses.

I also watched the security copy turn away vendors with badges that said “vendor” because they didn’t have a vendor badgeholder.  Following the rules!

Tune in tomorrow for more.

There must be a country somewhere that would like to have them run it for them.  (Yang and Bostock not Bush and Cheney)

Bluffing never works when everyone knows what’s in your hand.  Your move Roy.

OK, they have 110v. outlets on Virgin America.  But:

1) Maximum power is 200W.  —-  most hairdryers are 1500W.

2) Most of the outlet in coach are dead.

3) Who is going to wash her hair in that little sink?

Geez Richard, have you ever flown on the planes?  Try to review the ads before they put them on the side of a building in San Francisco, dude.

Google has arrived on the Embarcadero in San Francisco.

The restaurants love it. They fill up the Epic Roast House.  Jan Birnbaum, the head chef told me the other day that he was hosting a gathering for 70 Googlers that evening —- “I love Monopoly Money” he said. We see the black Bauer’s buses waiting to pick them up (with their engines idling). — got to keep the WiFi alive. Little compact cars labeled “Google Security” patrol the block around the Hills Center. — keeping Googlers safe from something. And this is a photo of their office taken at 6 AM on Saturday morning. Wow, they are hard workers. —- everyone is in the office and the lights are blazing.