There was a little press conference this afternoon with Tim O'Reilly and Rael Dornfest. Last year some of the most exciting things I heard at the entire conference came from this smaller press only event - this year wasn't as mind blowing but was still very cool. Since time is tight right now and I don't want to hold out on you I'm just going to put my rough notes online as is. They are in the extended entry, much as I typed them so please excuse the errors which I'm sure are countless.

doc asks: What are you thinking that you haven't told us about yet?

Tim: we're at the front end of so much that we've been playing with and talking about starting to come into effect.

Rael: there's a focus now on building these apps for the real word. A lot of the people who are building it now got creamed in the bust and are being much more cautious this time around by makeing sure it's something for everyone.

Tim: average of 4000 first subscribers to make, 35+, $108,000 salary. It's no longer the kids, it's the kids who have grown up.

Tim: I think we're at the front edge of physical fabrication, people people making the piece they need rather than buy it with laser cutters or whatever.

Rael: harware hacking - as a kid i never had the $ to do this, if I broke a computer there was nothing I could do and I had to save for ever to get my first one, whereas now I'm getting handed modules in the hall way that are more powerful than the ones I had and there's something amazing about being able to hold these kinds of things in your hands.

Susan asks: so many products, books and things, how do magazines fit into the forward stratagy?

Tim: even though media is in our name it's not something we always think about. Be it books, conferences or now magazines we look for people on the edge of technology and when we see these small things that scall up we try to do something with it.

Trends driving media- Atomization of content. Instant gratification when looking for content (via google for example). Atomized and brand anonymous content is a big one.

content is beinging media rich, not just text. Might be flash or Javascript but it's no longer just words that are the focus.

Data stars are becoming media stars.

Buzz is a predictor and a map.

Q: looking at the tech space, what would you like to see in education both in college and high school levels?

Rael: One of the big challenges is teaching kids how to synthesize, they are being overwhelmed with all this info and kids aren't sure how to handle that. At the same time that's an advantage because there's more options. Blogging - classrooms are reflecting out to other classes things they are learning and sharing that info out.

Tim: I think there's another piece to this question, when you have somekind of profoundly transforming media (reading, now computers) you have new skills which trump the old skills. For example before writing people were memorizing massive plays which would be impossible now, but reading and writing trumped that, so there will be new skills which move into into play.

followup Q: What are the remaining obstacles?

Tim: The past always likes to kill the future. Intrusion of the political power into technological progression is a big problem. Hollywood lobbying politicians to make laws preventing progress is example. Old mindsets need to be replaced and that is a natural evolution but it takes some time for it to happen. AOL holding MapQuest back is a good example.

trying to show the big guys what the little guys are doing right, and pointing out to them if they aquire the little guys what they should not fuck up.

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