(image) The Signal San Francisco conference is less than a week away, so I thought I’d take the time to explain my reasoning for the theme, and offer a curtain raiser of sorts on the day-long program. (PS, I have ten, and only ten, half price tickets available. Hit this link, and use the code “luckyday.”)
The theme, a portion of which is the title of this post, is “The Yin and Yang of Audience, Platforms and the Independent Web.” I do get a few eyes a-rollin’ when I frame conference themes, but hey, I can only do what I know how to do. I actually think pretty hard about this stuff, and like to take the time to outline the ideas behind the program.
So here goes. As readers know, I’ve been thinking out loud a lot about the future of the Internet, and whether the rise of “walled gardens” like Facebook and Apple’s iOS (what I call AppWorld) are ultimately the future the web. My short answer is yes….and. By that I mean that the Internet, which began as an open, gatekeeper-free platform where anyone could hang a shingle, will ultimately interconnect with these walled gardens – there’s just too much value in what I call the “ecosystem approach” for the opposite to occur. I framed two major forces driving the Internet today: The independent web (sites unaffiliated with major platforms like Google or Facebook), and the dependent web (major platforms which create a valuable “logged in” experience that changes “depending” on who you are.).
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