Julio’s Musings Around Columbia County, New York

Though I now find myself in Dublin, Ireland on my next leg of a two week trip to London and Ireland, I wanted to write a few more words around the Future of Web Application Conference (FOWA).
One of the most enjoyable though not educational aspects of the conference was the live filming of an installment of “Diggnation”. In the main auditorium in front of a standing room only audience, Kevin Rose and his sidekick Alex Albrecht (or maybe its the other way around) kept the crowd pumped,yelling and screaming with their adolescent politically incorrect banter while drinking whatever free beer was provided by the sponsors or fans.

Though I did not take an actual count, I suspect the audience as was the conference itself was about 95% male. The largest number between 20 and 29 years of age but there were 30 and 40 somethings as well to keep me from feeling anachronistic.

All and all, it was very interesting to be part of a group who truly believe they are re-making society and have that fleeting dream of becoming rich at the same time. It reminds me of the adolescent years and rock bands and thoughts of becoming the next Led Zeppelin or something similar. Now of course, behind all that facade it was just about finding and attracting girls. Sadly, the crowd at the Future of Web Applications hasn’t been as successful based on my visual survey of the scene.
[tags]FOWA,Future of Web Applications, Diggnation, Julio Hernandez-Miyares[/tags]

FOWA

Originally uploaded by julio.miyares

I find myself in London, England at the moment attending Future of Web Applications FOWA for short. Excellent “dork” fest of folks in the Web development space getting together to hear each other speak about the Web and what’s happening and where its going.

Great way to make a living if you can. Pundits on the Web. I have tremendous respect for the folks presenting especially those that have taken action and established their own companies irrespective of the attendant risks. I don’t believe risk-taking of that caliber is for only the young but on the Web, or at least at this type of conference, its interesting to see those with Cult-status are barely out of college age.

I guess its humbling for me being over 29 years old listening and taking pointers from these 20 somethings but .. what the hell, I will take the pearls of wisdom from whomever.

Trying to finish this blog entry quickly so I can get to the live filming of Diggnation live from the ExCel Center.

[tags]FOWA, Julio Hernandez-Miyares[/tags]