Social media backlash forecast

The death of the traditional games console, the blurring of boundaries between print and electronic media and an impending social media backlash all featured in yesterday’s opening session of the Dublin Web Summit.

Now in its third year, the two-day event — a mix between seminar and exhibition — has grown into Europe’s largest technology conference, featuring presentations from some of the industry’s top players, 500 start-ups exhibiting their wares, and hundreds of venture capitalists looking for investment opportunities.

According to event founder and co-ordinator, Paddy Cosgrave, the summit is bringing together 4,000 people (up from 1,500 last year) “who are passionate about tech and innovation together to learn, network, share ideas and pitch”.

Regarding the presence of investors such as Google Ventures, KPCB, Greylock, and Atomico, Mr Cosgrave said: “We’ve given start-ups the best possible platform — these funds manage billions of dollars and they’re all looking to invest.”

Today’s session will hear from likes of film director, Barry Sonnenfeld; Victoria Ransom, founder of the Google-owned social media marketing company, Wildfire, and Wael Ghonim, who is credited with helping start Egypt’s democratic revolution. There will also be a discussion — featuring representatives of Google Ventures and the New York Stock Exchange — on ‘the next big thing’.

Yesterday’s session heard from the likes of Skype founder, Niklas Zennstrom and AOL’s digital forecaster, David Shing, who last March proclaimed apps to be “rubbish”. His Dublin address noted that the ‘likes’ concept on social network sites is equally “rubbish” and that ‘un-following’ and ‘de-friending’ will become a major trend on such sites.