TheDeal Convergence 2.0 in NYC

TheDeal put on a great event yesterday called Convergence 2.0 at The Museum of Television and Radio in NYC. Some great speakers including Mel Karmazin and Leo Hindery.

Leo described a power shift from the portals (AOL, MSN, Yahoo, eBay) to Content Providers (since they control the content) in the next few years and that their control over these markets is detoriorating. One thing Leo forgot to mention is that the portals are in control because they have aggregated eyeballs (e.g. traffic), which the content providers do not. In order for this shift to happen the content providers need to have massive traffic. However, there are and will be only so many "access points" to content on the web. Those who control the main access point to aggregated content will ultimately be the winners.

Perhaps the most interesting panel was with Scott Kurnit, Neal Goldman of Inform.com, and Dennis Miller of Spark Capital on the nature of entrepreneurship and the qualities required to build something from scratch. Neal was eloquent on this topic pointing out the determination and resilience required to "stay tough" in the early stages and Dennis noted that many entrepreneurs are borderline insane/manic (which I'm sure many Pixsy employees can attest to).