I had the fortune of being able to carve out 4 days from the office to attend the Web 2.0 conference at the Javitz Center in NYC. Come to think of it, this was the most amount of time that I left the office in a non-vacation function in 17 years.

Was it worth it?? DEFINITELY.

I must admit, the week was a bit daunting from an information-overload point-of-view. But I left the conference with a renewed sense of excitement and direction. My hats off to co sponsors O’Reilly and Techweb for putting together a whirlwind week. In fact this was the first time Web 2.0 expo graced the big apple.

Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures, gave a fascinating keynote on the history of web in New York.The beginning of the internet in NY, according to Fred, was in 1979 and Red Burns from the ITP program at NYU. He talks of the early days of dial-up services with companies such as Archie, Gopher, Prodigy. Prodigy was the first company to offer dial up access to the www in 1994. The term Silicon Alley was given to the NY internet efforts in the early 90s. There were many failures along the way and agency’s such as razorfish, agency.com and itraffic opened for business as the first internet agencys. One of the early successes with online publishing was in 1995 with the New York Times and their coverage of the Popes visit.� Doubleclick was the first internet to go public in 1997.

As the internet industry evolved, “all hell broke loose” in 1999 Wilson said. An IPO and acquisition frenzie ensued, over 200 startups were funded in ’99 and 300 in 2000. And as history is told the dot com bubble burst later the same year.

I remember several traditional design agencies who fell into this trap and switched all of their resources to web and later paid the price when the bottom fell. At that time CSD played it conservatively and tiptoed into web world and at the same time maintained a strong traditional presence. This allowed us to hedge ourselves quite nicely looking back.

Fast forward, Web 2.0 was coined in 2003 and the next wave of web evolution had begun. Web 2.0 companies such as del.icio.us emerged as the early champions of 2.0. Other key milestones were: About.com being bought by The NY Times in 2005 and in 2006 Google set up shop in Manhattan. In 2007 companies such as Buddy Media, Path101, Tumblr opened.

So a lot has happened since 1979. New York as it compares to Silicon Valley, has gone from 1/8th of the internet companies 1/3rd today. And as Fred Wilson projects that trend will continue.

Fred Wilson’s entire video can be viewed at http://laughingsquid.com/fred-wilson-on-the-history-of-the-new-york-internet-industry.

This was one keynote among many others that we’re totally interesting and educational at Web 2.0 Expo. I eagerly look forward to next year’s expo and am extremely exciting about implementing what I learned in my business.