China is a huge market, and as a soon-to-be-public company, Google could not afford to sit on the sidelines as competitors charge into the region.

When we see a remarkable new company that redefines the technology industry, we either fear it because of all the things it might do or we expect more from it than it can possibly deliver,

In the past, Google has used teams of humans to 'read' its street address images - in essence, to render images into actionable data. But using neural network technology, the company has trained computers to extract that data automatically - and with a level of accuracy that meets or beats human operators.

Facebook's data trove is enviable, and its moves into nearly every aspect of our lives - from payment to media, will create even more of it. The company also has created a huge base of developers for its platform, but the ecosystem is incomplete compared to vertically integrated OSes like iOS, Mac or Windows.

At the Web 2.0 Conference a year ago, we gathered to discuss the implications of the Web becoming a platform. This year, we're taking it further, focusing not just on declaring the platform, but showing where the innovation is happening and what we might expect in the coming year, ... Web 2.0 attendees will be immediately plugged into the ecosystem of the new Internet and allowed to make connections vital to their business strategy.

Way back in 2008, when the iPhone was new and Instagram was a gleam in Kevin Systrom's eye, I was involved in creating a service called CrowdFire. It was a way for fans at a festival (the first was Outside Lands) to share photos, tweets, and texts in a location and event specific way.