The Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin last week was a great chance to catch up with friends in the European scene (including honorary yurpeens like Stowe ;-), but as a conference it was a mixed bag. One highlight was Tim O'Reilly's interesting and inspiring opening keynote urging us to focus on solving big problems in the real world. This tapped into my own interests and sense of changing priorities in the post-bubble era.

My own contribution was a talk about niche online social networks, which was really just a plea for young developers and startups to wake up, smell the end of the Web 2.0 build-to-flip era and do something more meaningful as a way of creating both social and financial value. Ben Hammersley later gave a similar lecture in one of the 10-minute sessions, and he is much less deserving of the boring old man label than me, despite what he implied in his talk ;-)

Essentially, my point was that the financial bubble and the Web 2.0 bubble were inextricably linked in the sense that (a) remarkably few companies have created much value, beyond moving around declining advertising dollars, (b) most VC activity has been aimed at selling on companies rather than building them, and (c) it was predicated on constant growth and inflated GYM market capitalisation to create secondary markets for startup acquisition. In the post-bubble world, it will be harder to create the next mega-site like Facebook or MySpace, but there is a world of opportunity in working with niche networks and communities to create real social value, and the technology required to do so it getting simpler and more accessible all the time.

I looked at a few recent case studies where Headshift have been involved in helping to create intimate, purposeful online social networks, such as the green behaviour change site Green Thing, the Groundswell-award-nominated Mentornet in Australia, and the Frontline Club members network, which will soon be launched as part of a wide-ranging refresh of their online presence. I also reprised elements of the Kozarac.ba story because it remains one of my favourite examples of this phenomenon.

I remain convinced that intimacy and common purpose are more in line with the culture of the internet than mega-malls like Facebook, where funders are more interested in achieving a ridiculous $15bn valuation for the company than in changing peoples' lives for the better.

This is why I like projects like Social Innovation Camp, whose current call for ideas is open until November 7th, if you happen to be thinking about submitting an idea - though I should warn you that I am one of the judges this year! ;-)

We are currently working with a brilliant project called Enabled by Design, which was a previous winner. They have exactly the right combination of passion, energy and imagination to be a successful social enterprise, so we plan on clinging to their coat-tails for as long as they will let us.

If you want a short, playful intro to SICamp, then this sweet video does the trick: