Thank You, San Francisco!

Presumably, this will be my last post from the Moscone Center and Web 2.0 Conference. I may be able to slip one in at the airport if the WiFi is free. But nothing in SF has been free so far, so I'm not expecting it. Denver, maybe? We'll see. On that note, I want to leave here with a few thoughts. I'll skim the session I went to and add some photos.

I attended a session called Using Gameplay to Make a Big, Boring, Complex Industry Approachable and Fun by Cordell Ratzlaff. Ratzlaff is the creative director for a company called Kapitall that utilizes the concept of gaming to help people understand the world of online trading. His demonstration was nicely done and the game itself looks very intriguing. It's built using HTML5 and javascript so it works across all platforms. Is it ADA compliant? The jury is out on that, but it proves that complex gaming engines crunching huge amounts of real-time data can be created without Flash. I also think there is an application for this in what we do. (Think Farmville only more real).

My next session is Social Games 2.0: Myth, Fact and a Grand Future. It should be interesting.

Thoughts on San Francisco:

San Francisco is an amazing city. It's beautiful, unique, free spirited and from what I can see, accepting. It's an overall cool place and a great place to hold a Web 2.0 conference. That said, I'm ready to come home. I'm tired of being charged too much for meals. I'm tired of being charged for everything (rides, information, internet, 6-packs of beer for $12... SRSLY!). I miss my wife, my kids, my Manhattan. One thing that San Francisco has done for me has been to make me realize that I'm satisfied living in Manhattan. Big city life is cool and exciting, but deep down, I'm a small town kid who spent a good part of his life out on the farm. It's my heritage and it's in my blood. I'll be glad to be home again.

If the iPad was the technology du jour inside the conference, the Smart Car was it's relative outside the conference. There were a ton of these out here in SF.

The last photo is a view from the 2nd level of the Moscone Center. It's just downtown SF, but it's exciting to a small town boy like me.

Thank you San Francisco for a fun stay. To everyone in Manhattan, I'll see you soon!

Neal