Supernova 2007: because technology is everyone's business

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Conference Agenda

I’ve posted the draft agenda for the general sessions at Supernova 2007. 

It always takes a long time to fit everything together, and I’ll be tweaking the sessions until right before the conference.  Unlike many events, Supernova doesn’t start with a pre-defined template.  I put together the most interesting sessions based on the speakers we’ve been able to confirm, and look for the best possible speaker to fit the sessions we’ve defined.  It’s a continually shifting puzzle, but the result is a more dynamic agenda. 

I’m excited about some of the things we have on tap this year, ranging from three of the smartest figures in the tech industry giving their perspectives on the future, to the Bush Administration’s top tech policy official.  I’ll be posting more details about individual sessions on this blog (and on our soon-to-launch Conversation Hub), but for now, go check out the line-up!

Monday, April 23, 2007

Choices and Voices in Communications

In my interview last week with Fon founder Martin Varsavsky, we discussed how Fon’s ambitious community WiFi service would get along with incumbent telephone and cable companies.  Martin argued that Fon was actually a good thing for these operators, because it extended the connectivity radius of their customers. Sounds like Martin and co. are making headway.  GigaOm is reporting today that Fon has struck a deal with Time Warner Cable to encourage cable modem customers to share their connections through Fon. 

This is a good sign for Fon, but also for the transformation of communications generally.  The future of connectivity is not about parallel platforms doing the same thing (although more competition in last-mile broadband would be a good thing).  It’s about multiple platforms doing different things, which link together to provide comprehensive user experiences.  The reality is that no one telecom company will ever have a truly ubiquitous global footprint.  And even if it did, it couldn’t possibly serve all the different needs of its users.  We’re used to thinking of communications as all-or-nothing.  In fact, we all use networks to communicate in different ways at different times.  I don’t need a highly reliable honking big pipe to check my email on a train, but I do to watch a live football game in high definition video.  And sometimes what matters to me is not what I’m connecting to, but who among my friends or colleagues are communicating with me. 

Thus, today I have a cable modem account (for home broadband), a wireline phone account (for home telephone), a VOIP line (for home/office telephone), a Skype connection (for telephone and instant messaging), a mobile phone account (for mobile calling), and a wireless data account (for mobile email and web surfing).  Sure, I could combine some of them, and other people might desire the convenience of fewer providers more than I do.  In general, though, communications will become more fragmented and complex, even as it becomes more social and (unfortunately) more consolidated as an industry.  It will look, in short, something like the consumer Internet industry today.  The key dimensions are the increasing complexity of choices (to match the diversity of user desires), and the increasingly social nature of the experience. 

Thursday, April 19, 2007

The Copyright Threat

Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Fred von Lohmann told the startups attending the Web 2.0 Expo this week that they should run their business plans by lawyers to anticipate litigation by intellectual property holders.  On one level, this is good advice.  Entrepreneurs and technologists too often ignore legal and policy issues that could trip up their businesses.  And there are certainly business ideas out there that clearly violate legal requirements.  Better to consider the risks ahead of time. 

On the other hand, it’s somewhat sad that, even as the technical and operational costs of starting an Internet business are plummeting, the legal costs seem to be rising.  This includes not just the direct expenses to pay the lawyers, but also the crushing uncertainty when investors and customers can’t be sure a company will survive the legal threats.  And that uncertainty is real.  Digital copyright law is unsettled in many key areas; the answers are often not obvious ahead of time.  Google, with its vast warchest and other resources, may be able to take risks around intellectual property, but most startups don’t have that luxury.  (YouTube is the exception that proves the rule.) So the question becomes, how to balance copyright holders’ legitimate concerns about protecting their rights, against innovators’ desire to deliver new services to their customers. 

At Supernova 2007, noted lawblogger Denise Howell will lead a Challenge Session workshop on these issues.  Fred von Lohmann will be joining us, as well as Morgan Lewis partner Ron Dreben and YouTube General Counsel Zahavah Levine.  It should be a rather lively discussion!

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Martin Varsavsky podcast

Knowledge@Wharton is running my podcast interview with Supernova 2007 speaker Martin Varsavsky.  We talk about changes in the telecom industry, which Martin has seen first hand as the founder of seven companies over the past 20 years.  He really gets going about halfway through the interview, when we start discussing the differences between the technology scene in America and Europe.  Worth a listen.