Web 2.0 debates internet's future: BBC

By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Opening up internet programming was a central theme of Web 2.0

San Francisco's Web 2.0 Expo conference brought together thousands of people responsible for crafting the future direction of the internet, and the world of applications - or apps - was front and centre.

Everyone from Microsoft to Yahoo to MySpace was on a mission to woo developers to create exciting applications for their devices.

Jennifer Pahlka of Techweb, one of the conference's co-chairs, said the carrot these big Silicon Valley companies were dangling to entice developers to get involved was that of openness and allowing people to devise programmes without constraints.

"Yahoo was talking about opening up advertising platforms, Mozilla was talking about opening up the mobile web and John Zittrain from Oxford University was talking about openness to drive innovation and creativity so we don't go into this closed system where every application has to be approved by someone else," said Ms Pahlka.

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