The Web 2.0 sector is a vibrant sector that is supported by hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital. But how many "Web 2.0" companies are profitable? What's the value of the Web 2.0 market as a whole?

It depends how Web 2.0 is defined but probably there aren't any profitable Web 2.0 companies yet, and the total value of the market is too small to measure.

So who is making money out of Web 2.0? That's easy, it is the conferences such as TechCrunch50 with tickets at $2,995 each. And of course Tim O'Reilly's trademarked Web 2.0 conferences such as the upcoming Web 2.0 Summit at $3,795 for each ticket.

BTW, I thought TechCrunch50 was supposed to kill DEMO? Last I looked DEMO is very much alive and kicking. It is just $2,999 but you can save $4 with this promo code: F8STANDARD1, which makes it exactly the same price as TechCrunch50.

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Please see: Web 2.0 Is On The Ropes. . . Kleiner Perkins Halts Investments

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today launched Google Chrome, a new open source browser intended to create a better web experience for users around the world. Available in beta in more than 40 languages, Google Chrome is a new approach to the browser that’s based on the simplicity and power that users have come to expect from Google products.

Google Press Center: Press Release

Foremski's Take:

Google's new browser will reclaim millions of dollars that it pays to third parties such as Mozilla, the open source organization that develops and maintains the popular Firefox browser, for traffic directed to its sites.

Mozilla received revenues of $66.8m in 2006 and $52.9m in 2005, about 85 percent came from Google payments for each search query conducted by a Firefox user through Google.

Apple also receives substantial payments from directing Safari users to Google. These payments are all part of Google's Traffic Acquisition Costs (TAC), a closely watched number by Wall Street analysts. A small reduction in TAC is always welcomed by a large boost in Google's share price.

Google's payments to third parties such as Mozilla and Apple, have jumped by more than 77 percent over the past year.

In GOOG's most recent second quarter financial report, TAC, not related to its AdSense ad network, was $154m. One year ago it was just $87m.

With its own browser, Google can capture more traffic directly and reduce those payments significantly, which drops straight to its bottom line, boosting its overall profitability. It's an excellent ROI that is bound to please its investors.

Innovation journalism is a concept that has been popularized by David Nordfors, who leads the Innovation Journalism program at Stanford university. The subject just received a big boost from the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation with the award of a 900,000 euro ($1.31 million) research grant to a Finnish research consortium that will work with the innovation journalism program at Stanford.

If you have about a minute, here is David Nordfors explaining, "What is innovation journalism?"

More details from David Nordfors: The Innovation Journalism Blog: Finnish Innovation Journalism Research Gets 900.000 Euro

The main aim of the new research project (acronym as Ginjo) is to enlarge and deeper the knowledge of global innovation journalism, and also develop new working methods and tools for news media. Case studies will concentrate on topics such as “green tech” and eldercare innovations.

I recently interviewed Judy Estrin, one of Silicon Valley's top entrepreneurs, and asked her about the gender gap in the valley and why there aren't more women in senior executive ranks.

Here is her reply:

Also, here is my recent interview with Ms Estrin about her new book:

Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy

We spoke for about 90 minutes, here is a highly edited version of that conversation.

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http://www.theinnovationgap.com/

Allison Lovejoy brings us the Lovejoy Lowdown on Sol Crawford organizer of the upcoming SF Hornucopia music festival.

Sol Crawford is one of the most interesting of San Francisco's music promoters. He is a co-partner at Amnesia, which has earned a reputation for one of the best live performance rooms in the Mission district.

Hornucopia is a celebration of any music with horns, and that's a very broad definition. Starting September 4th 35 bands will play across 9 venues in 11 days.

Click To Play

http://blip.tv/file/1218918

The Hornucopia Festival is also a non-profit effort to benefit community organizations through a free music workshop, an educational presentation on the provocative history of brass and horn music, and as a fundraiser for two worthy causes: delivering new instruments into the hands of beleaguered youth second line bands in New Orleans and raising money for a humanitarian circus that presents free shows and workshops to refugee children in Kosovo.

http://www.hornucopiafestival.org/

[Wrapping up the week in three dots . . .]

The slow days of August haven't been that slow. And September will blow in like a hurricane with a slew of events, with Office 2.0 the first week in September.

. . .

Vote early, vote often . . .

The PR Week awards for best PR blogs has been interesting to watch. PR bloggers have been asking their supporters to vote, and to vote often, which brings up some interesting ethical issues.

How good is a PR blogger if that PR blogger can't pull together the PR to get out the vote? Is it OK to do that or should votes happen in an organic way, without cheerleading the way?

What about all the other type of "vote for best Web 2.0 company" type awards? Is it OK to hire a PR company to help get out the vote or should it be a natural process?

This is why I think the best awards are those judged by a panel of peers, imho.

. . .

Sites I like . . .

Seeqpod: Interesting music service. What it does is it finds music you search for and then plays it via a streaming front end. You can save your playlists and share them. The music it finds is on other people's sites, so it isn't licensed. It finds the music files and plays the files without downloading the files and so it tries to avoid the licensing issue because the files are out there in the cloud and not on its servers.

Here is an example: Last night I went to see the legendary Lee Scratch Perry. I'm not a fan of reggae but this was an extraordinary experience (he is playing the Independent tonight (Friday). Here is a Seeqpod playlist of Lee Scratch Perry I put together: http://tinyurl.com/6n7tfu.

TubeMogul: I just signed up for this service and if it delivers on its promise I will be forever grateful. I'm launching "Fridays with Foremski" in September, a weekly video show featuring interviews with top CEOs, thought leaders, profiling startups, covering major events and conferences - plus a gang of pundits/pals discussing recent events. It'll be a round up of video work I'll be doing during the week. Video takes a lot of work and one part that is a pain, is uploading it to many sites and then tracking the views and other analytics.

With TubeMogul you upload it once and it does all the rest: uploading to multiple sites and doing any neccesary transcoding etc. This service will potentially save me a lot of time, which can be used to do more interviews, etc.

Fridays with Foremski is coming!

Here is my recent interview with Judy Estrin, former CTO at Cisco and one of Silicon Valley's most successful serial entrepreneurs. She has been concerned about the topic of innovation for many years because we aren't making the investments needed--in Silicon Valley and as a nation.

She says that the explosion of Web 2.0 type innovation is masking a large problem.

She has a new book on this topic: Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy

We spoke for about 90 minutes, here is a highly edited version of that conversation.

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http://www.theinnovationgap.com/

I put together a fun promo reel for "Fridays with Foremski" a weekly video show launching in September that chronicles my travels around Silicon Valley. I'll be interviewing top CEOs, thought leaders, profiling startups, and covering major events and conferences. The focus will be the business and culture of Silicon Valley.

Plus, I'll have my own gang of pundits, similar to Steve Gillmor's excellent Gillmor Gang, with a discussion on the week's events. I'll be working with Alex Ross, my new VP of business development and the publisher of "Friday's with Foremski."

We are just beginning to pull together the sponsorships so if you'd like to find out more, please contact Alex Ross [alex(at)siliconvalleywatcher.com].

I'm out of town until the end of this week but when I return I'll tell you more about the series--and I'll be looking for suggestions from my readers about topics and people that they'd like to see on "Fridays with Foremski."

Here is a flavor of what you'll see, compiled from my work over the past year.

I just got back from a very inspiring conversation with Judy Estrin, a serial entrepreneur, former CTO at Cisco, and one of Silicon Valley's top thought leaders.

I first met Ms Estrin about 7 years ago when I profiled her achievements in the Financial Times. What makes Ms Estrin interesting is that she is a dyed-in-the-wool Silicon Valley entrepeneur spanning several decades and she is not afraid to speak her mind.

Over the past few years she has been sounding the alarm about the lack of innovation in Silicon Valley, and in the US. We are living off of investments in innovation made many years ago and we are not creating the conditions for a new crop of innovation. And we need to harvest a bumper crop of innovation if we are to solve four major crises: energy, climate change, healthcare, and security.

Her work has led to a new book - Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy

Her research includes many interviews with corporate leaders and many others around the US.

"It was wonderful to get out of Silicon Valley and talk to people about what is happening to innovation," Ms Estrin said. "Too often we get caught up in our own little world in the valley, and we don't see what is happening elsewhere." She discovered that we are running a national innovation deficit, and that we need to act now to avoid serious consequences. She describes the problems and offers solutions.

I will have a video and podcast audio of my interview with Ms. Estrin coming up on SVW.

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http://www.theinnovationgap.com/

I spent much of the day at the Intel Developer Forum Wednesday at the Moscone in San Francisco (Intel is an SVW sponsor). It was great to bump into old UK buddies such as Joe Fay, news editor at The Register, and Mike Magee, the UK's most entrepreneurial journalist, and many others, including a bunch of my favorite ex-Podtech people.

Here is a short peek into my day at IDF.

A short description:

Here is part of my day at Intel Developer Forum. You get to see some of the Intel Insiders in action; plus you meet the founder of XIHA Life, a multi-lingual social network site from Finland, and a lady from Intel, demos TV widgets, developed by Intel and Yahoo.

Included: cameo's from well known local bloggers and personalities, such as Cathy Brooks, JD Lasica, Eddie Codel, Jeremiah Owyang, Chris Heuer, Ken Kaplan, Christine Ngo and other familiar faces...

Jeremiah Owyang

Cathy Brooks

Eddie Codel

JD Lasica

Ken E Kaplan

Chris Heuer

Christine Ngo

Please see: UK's Pioneering Publisher Mike Magee Launches Indian-based IT Publication