Web2.0 Expo Review
The Web2.0 Expo wrapped up on Friday. The quality of the sessions were second only to the quality and quantity of interesting people that I met at the conference. It is a fun conference to attend with a lot of experimentation going on (Fireball, Blogtropulous quizes, Twitter-influenced sessions). Looking at the sessions I attended, my learnings centered around the themes of personal informatics, social media, gaming, and mobile. Here are a couple of takeaways.
- Use Data Politely - There is a wealth of user data that every website should leverage, but users should be given full control on how data is used and stored.
- Make Data Use Relevant - All that data needs to be used in ways that are relevant to users. Relevant use of data = strong value proposition.
- Empower Users - When planning your site, try to stay away from over planning and creating a inflexible, controlled experience. Listen to your user community, give them the tools and let them lead you to where your site should go.
- Leverage Human Psychology - Games have a history of creating compelling user experiences through tapping basic human desires: Collecting, Obstacles, Resources, Achievement, Recognition, and Personalization. Any website can use these traits to create more compelling experiences for their users.
- Mobile Creates Context - Most data on the web lacks the context needed to build predictive models. Mobile devices automatically provide the important contexts of who, when and where. Yahoo! is doing some really cool things in this area.
- Community is Key - For many web businesses, success or failure will largely be determined by their ability to build a strong community. This needs to become a priority for companies.
