The Next Web is over and it is now time to have a good look at what happened. The conference was quite a lot of fun. For me it started at 7:30 AM when I arrived to help create the bloggers-booth where bloggers had a landlines internet connection. This booth was used by some grateful bloggers to do live write-ups of the speakers. I did all this hard work together with Sjors Timmer who had prepared most of the work. He wrote a very interesting wrietup of what The Next Web is:

“The next web is wireless (not mobile), The Next Web isn’t a web, The Next Web is about being connected, The Next Web is de-central, The Next Web is about love, The Next Web is a social prison, The Next Web will be transparent”

Once this task was done at 8:30 I decided to search for Jeroen and Reinier of TipIt.to because they were given a stand in the hall. All the startups with stands were pushed in a very narrow corner of the Tuschinski Theatre which was very regretful as it was dark, warm, and narrow. They could better have used the main entry where they put Adobe and Level3 (boring!).
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The bad wifi connection at The Next Web conference prevented me from giving a live review of The Next Web conference, but in the end I managed to create some nice photographs. For stories I will have to forward you to the many people who wrote extensive reviews of the conference. I personally really liked Deborah Schultz’s talk and Dick Hardt’s 30 minute adaption of his Identity 2.0 speech. For me the award of best speech would go to Deborah as Dick’s talk was basicaly a repeat of his OSCON speech.

Interesting articles on The Next Web 2:
ReadWrite
The Next Web official website
Dutch Cowboys - Dick Hardt
Dutch Cowboys - Deborah Schultz

Below are the photos that I made:

Four Starters is going a bit Live, as we will be reporting from The Next Web Conference, Reboot (Alper is going) and now we have also been invited to the Essential Web ‘07 in London. If you are interested in coming, have a look at our special deals at the bottom of this post.

Essential Web ‘07 will be held on the 27th of June so it is a bit further away than The Next Web Conference and Reboot, but it is another event where entrepreneurs, investors and corporations. The event is organized by LibraryHouse, a consultancy agency focusing on being “the essential source of comprehensive information on the fastest growing, most innovative ventures around Europe”. LibraryHouse has created an interesting concept with Essential Web ‘07, as they do have a panel and presentation by companies, but they have shifted the focus of the event to mainly include “raw” companies. The panel, which includes Saul Klein and Jonathan Wolf, will take a look at these raw companies and at the end of the day pick one that will win their ‘07 award.

Essential Web ‘07 might have the elegant PR of The Next Web Conference but where the latter focuses on inspiring presentations, Essential Web ‘07 offers a lot of small, new, fresh companies a change to meet big investors. Four Starters will be covering this event and showcasing the new and inspiring companies. Among the companies are Jaiku (not so raw), LouderVoice and Shozu.Tickets are £295 (inc. VAT) when you order before the 1st of June and this will become £395 (still cheaper than a ticket for the other conferences) after this date. Entrepreneurs that want to showcase their own product can also buy tickets for £95 and get some extras. If you buy a ticket via one of the links on this page Four Starters will get a share of the sale, which will keep us pay our hosting bill. Hope to see you there!

It took a while to arrange, but I am proud to announce that Four Starters will be reporting live from The Next Web Conference on the 1st of June in Amsterdam. We managed to arrange access to the event so we will be updating you with the inspiring stories by interesting speakers like Scott Rafer, Dick Hardt, Michael Arrington, Saul Klein and Felix Petersen (full list can be found here). Additionally Four Starters will be recording all the talks on video for the organizers of The Next Web, but there it is not clear yet how these will be released.

Don’t forget that in the evening following the conference we will be attending The Next Web Award ceremony for which TipIt.to has been nominated in the category . If you haven’t voted yet, then click on the banner on the right of this page and maybe you will win an Apple iPhone or a Nokia N800 Tablet! I hope to see some of you at these events, and if you want to join the fun than you can still register a ticket at the registration page (€550, 50% off for students).

On June 1st the Tuschinski Theatre in Amsterdam will host the second The Next Web Conference. Besides announcing the winners of The Next Web Awards (where TipIt is nominated) there will also be an opportunity to attend interesting talks by speakers like Dick Hardt (Identity 2.0), Saul Klein (Skype, OpenCoffee), Scott Rafer (MyBlogLog), Felix Petersen Plazes) and many more. I was informed by the guys behind the conference that they had to really turn down many sponsors to make sure that the conference would not be a big PR-talk filled day. I expect the conference to be a great success of high quality, and I’m still doubting (money wise) if I will attend myself as I will be in The Netherlands anyway at the beginning of June.

Tickets for the conference are limited and cost €550 ex VAT. There is a student discount of 50% with only 15 passes available so I think I have to decide quickly. For people who don’t have the money or time to attend the conference there is a OpenCoffee Amsterdam meetup just the day after the conference (June 2nd).