The Web 2.0 conference seems to be a dud. But don't ask me too much about it because I've been out of town for a few days recently. I've been at my favorite conference bar none: The New Comm Forum up in Sonoma county.

Wednesday, late in the day, I popped back to San Francisco to catch up with some friends that were in town for the conference. I asked around about the show and I was surprised at the lukewarm, almost tepid response.

The reports I got about the show were surprisingly bland or maybe beige is a better description.

This surprised me because the build up to the show was very impressive. There was a D-Day scale PR assault on the local press corps, promoting the glories of the coming Web 2.0 show--way, way more than usual.

It seems as if the hype machine couldn't, or maybe didn't, want to get off the beach.

Here is an interesting additional data point from last year. I know this doesn't yet make for a trend but it is worth watching. . .

Please see: Web 2.0 Is On The Ropes. . . Kleiner Perkins Halts Investments

Now I feel less guilty about heading back up on Thursday to the New Comm Forum (...a salon of peers and not podiums :-)

BTW, send me an email, or a twit, if you find something interesting at the show I'll publish it when I get back: tom(at)foremski.com.

"We are in a soup of computing. Web 2.0 is all around us," O'Reilly said. He got nods from the crowd of the converted, who were busy Twittering, Facebooking, blogging, and SMSing, practicing continuous partial attention.