Just came back from an exhausting session at Barcamp Hyderabad. A report on it:
Talk #1
What is Web 2.0?
- Web 2.0 is Organization of Information
- No binding definition
- It’s a concept
- Semantic Web (Tagging) is what is used to segregate information from the noise.
- Blogs have played a major role in creating the hype surrounding Web 2.0
- Not only a rich UI, but a rich user experience too.
My opinion: Good talk; covered almost all basics.
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Talk #2
Opportunities in Web 2.0
Jay Pullur, CEO Pramati
- Is Web 2.0 the return of dot-com? Aren’t they the same business plans?
- Similar business plan, but different implementation
- Mashups, through open APIs
- Business model could be either
- Tech focused, or
- Networks Effect focused
- Web 2.0 is for people uncomfortable with the existing internet, for newbie.
- No clutter of information
- Simplified web
- Web 2.0 is evolving fast and some features may very well be obsolete soon
- “When the world is flat, you can innovate without having to emigrate” – Quote from The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
My opinion: Impressive. Good idea about making mail client more helpful, his Dad helped a lot 
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Talk #3
Economics of Web 2.0
Rajan, Co-founder Advetta
- What governs the economics?
- Value – What is important to me?
- Increasing Returns – Value increases with more usage
- Inflection: n^2 -> 2^n
- Carpool Mumbai – Best example of Web 2.0 in present Indian context
- Web 2.0 is an interface of
- Production
- Corporation
- Marketing
- Media
- Manage attention, not information
- To much information on the web
- Everything should be personalized
- Should be user-driven, not algorithm-driven
My opinion: A geeky talk Especially liked the part about managing attention, instead of information
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Talk #4
Parallels in Web 2.0 and Tangible User Interface (TUI)
- TUI definition: Instead of keyboard, mouse, monitor use other things to interact with computer.
- Examples:
- Phidgets (Physical Widgets)
- Web 2.0 & TUI, both
- Focus on Efficient User Interface leading to Rich User Experience
- Are event driven
My opinion: Videos helped a lot in understanding TUI. Would be cool to have a user driven Phidget/TUI
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Talk #5
Did not attend, would like to have an abstract of his talk. Anyone?
Update:
- Dr. Vishal's presentation was on a very open topic, something called openjournal, where everyone can contribute based on their virtue.
- Something on the lines of wikipedia.
- He related it to web 1.0 which actually started because of the need of sharing articles and papers among the universities.
Thanks Rakesh
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Talk #6
meraSystem
- It is a virtual system
- Would have a look and feel similar to a normal system
- Front end would be a thin client accessible through browsers
- Back end would be a grid of computers
- Would take care of
- Optimization
- Fault tolerance
- Security
- Would support all platforms
- Would sound the knell for the “Death of a PC”
My opinion: I liked the concept. All questions asked were related to the commercial point of view. Kamal Sir’s talk was from a researcher’s point of view.
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Talk #7
- Concept of Generic Web Clients
- Web form designing is easier
- XForm
- Model
- UI Controls
- Event Handler
My opinion: Boring. Too many technical details 
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Talk #8 (Walk-In Talk)
Prabodh, Oracle
- Is a formalization of technologies
- Partial refresh
- AJAX pulls data right now, what about Pushing data?
Update:
- Prabodh talked about various topics mostly involved with the way Oracle works.
- In the web arena Oracle is really one of the leaders who were among the first people to notice the power of web.
- Thats why we see the concept of web-database which started with Oracle 8i [way back to 2000] and even before Google made this AJAX word this popular, Oracle already had this stuff in Oracle applications in the form of 'Partial Page Rendering'.
Thanks Rakesh for the extra information
My opinion: Brief, but good, introduction of AJAX
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Talk #9
AJAX & XForms
- Assumed or enforced user experience is a compromised user experience
- Demonstration
- Front end was a web browser
- Supports all objects – J2EE, JDBC, .NET etc
- User Driven
- Remote desktop through browser
- Forms can be created in browser
- All dev utilities in a browser
My opinion: My first reaction was repetition of Talk #7 & #8, until the demo started. Amazing demo. Every operation was incorporated in the browser. Rakesh’s comment – “Qt in browser!”. Everybody appreciated the demonstration, although a bit long.
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Talk #10
Kiran, Progress
- DOM Inspector
- Enhanced Java Script Editor
- Java Script Debugger
- Etc
- Etc
My opinion: This was a technological camp. Not a place to market the products. He even discussed Future Plans!
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Talk #11
Write Web Whatever Dot-Oh applications using Yahoo! UI libraries
- Core Components
- Animation
- Drag & Drop
- DOM
- Connection Manager
- Event
- UI Controls
- Calendar
- Slider
- Tree View
- Encouraging mashups (Flickr) gallery.yahoo.com
- developer.yahoo
- Showed a nice Yahoo! avatar browser
My opinion: Energetic talk. Supported open-source a lot.
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Talk #12
Creator of dimdim.com, Sundar Subramanian talked on entrepreneurship. About taking the plunge in entrepreneurship.
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Other observations:
- One guy was trying hard to sell himself and his own web 2.0 consulting company
- One guy was a Microsoft addict. Everywhere was plugging in live.com and anything related to Microsoft.
- There are many geeks in Hyderabad
Overall an awesome experience. Looking forward to more barcamps.
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