The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Web 2.0 a booster shot for network economy

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Thursday, Dec 20, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Web 2.0 a booster shot for network economy

Special Correspondent

Next-gen technology conference debuts in city

BANGALORE: Six information technology leaders challenged to define what “Web 2.0” was, came to different but ultimately drew nearly 800 technology practitioners to the city for a two-day meet which ended on Wednesday.

For B.V. Naidu, Managing Director of SemIndia, Web 2.0 was “Opportunity 2.0” for India — a “booster shot for the networked economy”. The young, who formed 54 per cent of the population, were driving this new-era economy, he said in his opening remarks.

Naresh Gupta, managing director of Adobe India, saw the phenomenon as a simple evolution of the worldwide web from its earlier avatar.

“It is a collaborative two-way street,” said Mohit Hira, Marketing Director for Times Internet, barely pausing to take a sideways swipe at Bangalore’s plethora of one-way streets, that he had to navigate to reach the conference venue.

MindTree Consulting’s Chief Executive Krishna Kumar Natarajan offered four Cs as his definition of Web 2.0: content, commerce, community and context.

MSN India’s Country Manager Jaspreet Bindra’s view was that the web’s “second coming” had turned the user from a static object to the very subject of Internet.

And Frost & Sullivan’s Director (Consulting) T.R. Madan Mohan threw a googly that had most of the audience wondering what had hit them.

Web 2.0, he said, saw resources institutionalised by “externalising and not internalising” them.

The panel agreed that while a very few people were making money from the web, the scene was still one of a few real winners — and lots of losers.

India is pathetic, embarrassingly small market for net-based services, said Mr. Bindra. Broadband was seen as the biggest challenge in India, for the growth of web-enabled collaborative services.

The event had the support of Microsoft, IndiaTimes, Yahoo, Sify, Netmagic, SAP, Adobe, Epsilon and Intel. Participating companies include BEA, WebTrends, MetaInfotech and TeknoPoint.

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