There’s lots of stuff going on in San Francisco this week due to the web 2.0 expo. I checked it out on Monday and I was actually a little shocked at how small it was (even though a lot of other people seem to be saying they are impressed with how big it was :)

I guess I’m just used to trade shows like RSA which are 5-10x bigger. I figured there are so many web 2.0 companies popping up each day that the expo would be at least aslarge – but if you think about it, all of these companies are running on fumes and probably can’t spare a few grand for a trade show booth (not to mention 3 days of lost development time :)
The after-conference activities are great, however. I went to the netvibes party at 111 minna last night – I arrived about 9:15 (it started at 9), and the line to get in ran around the corner and almost down to the next block! The lure of an open bar and good music, plus the chance to rub shoulders with up-and-coming internet entrepreneurs, was obviously strong. I caught a glimpse of James Hong from hot or not, and Justin Kan from justin.tv. I’m sure there were a lot of other interesting people there but I couldnt stay as long as I wanted to. Thanks netvibes for a great event – and a great product (I’ve actually had netvibes set as my homepage for the last 6 months or so – it’s how I keep up on all my blog reading).

Trends I’m picking up are that livecasting (live broadcasting of video by individuals) is getting hot (thanks to justin.tv) and could turn into something big in the next few years. Scoble tried it himself yesterday, but since changed his mind. Twitter is still going strong despite some earlier claims that it had already jumped the shark (interesting side note – looks like Twitter has become the first example of a large scale rails deployment, and is exposing – and hopefully fixing – some growing pains of the framework).

Separate to the web 2.0 expo, I attended an MIT/Stanford Venture Lab event tonight on online ad distribution networks. Lots of interesting information which I didn’t really capture (but rest assured vlab will start podcasting their events soon). If there’s one takeaway it’s that online advertising is huge, and growing at an enormous rate. There is still lots of room for growth in interesting areas such as P2P, in-game advertising, mobile etc. There’s also room to squeeze a lot of waste and inefficiency out of the current ad distribution model, which will help with more targeted and relevant advertising, and higher revenues for sites selling ads.