Web 2.0 Expo exposes Web 2.0 Bust

I think the down economy has finally bled through into tech space.

When I attended my first "web conference" in San Francisco's Moscone Center, it was like a day in wonderland. Free coffee, fast wifi, and lecture halls packed with programmers, marketers, and PR people.

Well, this year's Web 2.0 Expo isn't nearly as thrilling. There are no new gadgets coming out from Apple, no parties hosted by Digg, no South Park beer crawls, and the expo hall itself is 1/3 the size. Maybe it's the economy, but an expo pass is free. Why aren't there hundreds of companies packing the expo hall with swag, smiles, and synergy?

Walking around the expo hall, I only recognized a few big names like Microsoft, O'Reilly, Amazon, and Salesforce. Smaller startups occupied the rest of the space, and didn't do much to grab my attention.

Facebook had a nice booth with about 5 employees recruiting, but other than that, there really wasn't much to see at the expo hall.

The value gained from going to these events definitely comes from the social interactions you make with people. Last year, it was more vibrant and fun. This year, it's kinda awkward. If you want to find out what's going on, you can use Twitter search, or just jump around and find strangers, the experience in general just feels disconnected.

I do give a lot of credit to Janetti Chon, the event's community manager.

She's been keeping up the blog, setting up a booth crawl, and organizing some cool very talks. She did her best to gather the community for this event, but I just don't think everyone could make it.

It seems like Twitter is the only startup that people are talking about here. You can even get a "Twitter addict" tag for your badge.

Co-founder Evan Williams was on stage with Revision3's Veronica Belmont. He said that he likes what Facebook is doing, but Twitter is doing their own thing right now. Ev's better half Biz Stone will be on the Colbert Report tonight.

I didn't see any of the keynotes at Web 2.0, so I can't speak to those, but there is definitely an eery feeling walking around Moscone this year.

Hopefully, we are at the low point here, and next year will be better. Did you attend the expo? If so, what do you think?