This is my first post from Fortune’s first annual San Francisco-based technology conference, called iMeme: The Thinkers of Tech.
I moderated a warm-up session this morning — at 7:30, ouch! — where I simply asked the hearty folks who showed up to talk about the one technology or technology theme that they’re most excited about.
It was cool to see how diverse the responses were to such a simple question. VC Ann Winblad talked up the power of analytics, perhaps because Omniture (OMTR) has been such a success for her firm. (She says Hummer Winblad’s got a whole bunch more analytics investments.) Sol Trujillo of Australian phone company Telestra champions real-time technology and voice commands. He’s installed a super-fast wireless network down under. It’s changing how people live, he says.
Other themes: human factors, the semantic Web, rejuvenating old technology (a big topic in alternative energy), visual images in computing.
It’s going to be a fun two days. This afternoon I’m hosting a panel with senior executives from Yahoo (YHOO), Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT) and Ask.com, part of IAC (IAC). Got questions you want me to ask them? Post a comment to this blog and maybe I will!