[Web 2.0 Summit] The closing session was a speech and a conversation with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. The audience gave him a standing ovation at the beginning and at the end, he opened his speech by saying “Some week”… then he stated that the election could not happen without the worldwide web and the fund raising dimension was only a part of it. He gave an example of a political meeting in an empty warehouse where participants had only printers and internet enabled cell phones to gather relevant information.
He uses the electricity analogy to compare to the Internet’s innovation curve. In the future, we will take the Web 2.0 features for granted just like we did for the electricity. The full potential for great productivity of innovations related to electricity did not happen overnight and so it is for the Web, for example, soon there will be a new design for this empty warehouse where people gathered with their cell phones: it worth looking at the advantages of redesigning and re-architecturing within which the activity takes place: World 2.0. Editor’s note: what a statement!
Then, continuing with the grandiose historical analogies, he compared the democratization of information access enabled by the Internet with the revolutionary invention of the printing press by Gutenberg in the 15th century. Ultimately, this invention broke the monopoly of knowledge held by the aristocracy and the religious power and opened the way to the modern science and the new political model of democracy. Likewise, all the current reform movements take place on the Internet. That is why Al Gore co-founded Current TV, combining TV and the “democratized features of the Internet” like Digg and Twitter.
Finally he says ” a puppy has to have a purpose” using a quote he remembers from a dog trainer. In the same way, “Web 2.0 has to have a purpose, we have to have a purpose”.
The second video is the conversation with Al Gore, Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle. The topics of the future of the Web 2.0, the climate crisis and the economic crisis were discussed. Click on the video to watch.