AMP Summit 2010 Recap

To make a long story short, AMP Summit 2010 was amazing. Both Friday's and Saturday's sessions were very interesting and engaging, and the Friday after party was a great opportunity for networking or to just to have a good time. I am sure next year's event will be even better. Here are four major things that I took away from AMP 2010:

1. Precedents Set the Stage - Events like the Supreme Court ruling overturning the Communications Decency Act of 1996, McCain's ability to raise money online in 2000, and Dean's ability to organize online continue to shape the internet today.

2. Gowalla: Quality Over Quantity - To me, Gowalla is like that great band that you hear and wonder why no one else has heard of them. While Foursquare is rapidly growing its number of users, Gowalla continues to improve its user experience. I think that as more people start using location networking, and begin to look past the premise of just "checking in," people will embrace Gowalla's more advanced style of keeping track of your travels through challenges and badges. Gowalla CEO Josh Williams was correct in saying that location networking is waiting for their "landmark event" that will fully unleash the potential of the medium. Once that happens, people will be looking for the best all-around product, and in my opinion, Gowalla will still be the best service out there.

3. AOL Is Still Alive - AOL is a service that became synonymous with the annoying noise of a dial-up modem, and it seems to have disappeared ever since broadband connection became mainstream. AOL has now re-branded itself as Aol., and focuses on online advertising and distribution of content, similar to Yahoo and MSN, instead of providing internet access. I still am not entirely sure what role they will play in the future, but being a top sponsor of the AMP Summit was definitely a good start.

4. Next Year: Who knows? - If there is anything that I have learned about social media, it's that you never know what's around the corner. I guarantee that AMP Summit 2011 will have some hot issue that is not even heard of today.