eComm 2008 - The Stars Come Out

I've had the ridiculous pleasure of sitting in the audience at the eComm show this week. I'm trying to write some mashup software for the show next week (more about that soon), but I just can't seem to keep my head down in my laptop when people like this keep distracting me:

Martin Geddes: For those in the the know, Martin is possibly the most insightful analyst in the Telco 2.0 space. Martin's talk about the future of carriers was excellent, and an excellent preview to his conference next month in England. Martin's invited me to speak, and I get the distinct sense that I better have my A game on. Martin's talk focused on a new, two-sided business model for the carriers of the future, where the fundamental roles of carriers was akin to a logistics company.

Dean Bubbly : Dean's another analyst, but he eats, sleeps and breathes wireless. Dean's talks and analysis on the current and future wireless markets made me feel like I had a lot to learn. My sense was, I wasn't alone. Dean's analysis of Rich Miner's talk is actually better than hearing the original talk, which in itself was quite good.

Dr. Dawn Nafus : What a wonderful talk from this Intel researcher. Dawn's presentation was full of her results from real-world presence and context research, all of which I found completely fascinating. My favorite? Apparently, our conventional wisdom of when people are busy is exactly wrong. We are more likely to be interrupted when we are at the computer or on some other activity... not less.

Irv Shapiro : Irv's company, ifbyphone, looks to me like the phone mashup service provider that's closest to getting it. His presentation was right on, his message clear, and the ifbyphone business model looks like it might be a winner. Pay attention to them.

Simonie Wilson: Simonie Wilson brought a much needed injection of voice design rationality to our discussion. A great example of how the technology we need exists... if we were to just design it in the right way.

And I haven't even the time to talk about Jonathan Christiensen from Skype, Marc Smith from Microsoft, Blaine Cook from Twitter, Nitzan Shaer from Mobivox or Mark Rolston from Frog Design, because today's completely full of more people to distract me.

I'm really screwed.