The last day of our whirlwind trip to Silicon Valley ended on a high note at Add-on-Con 09. This conference, designed specifically for people who build and market browser add-ons, was appropriately held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
It was interesting to listen to panels from Google, Mozilla, Yahoo, Opera and some leading add-on companies discussing the future of add-ons. The question de jour was “Do add-ons need a market place?,” and Mozilla surprised the audience by announcing that they will “probably” open a marketplace for Firefox add-ons sometime next year. Justin Scott, Mozilla’s add-on ninja, didn’t add any details, but he requested that Mozilla users give them some feedback on the idea.
On the developer side, Google demoed their extension development interface and Mozilla talked about the future of Mozilla Lab’s Jetpack and Firefox Mobile.
A no-show from the sick Internet Explorer representative gave WOT an unexpected opportunity to demo. I had 5 minutes to show n’ tell Web of Trust to a room full of other add-on developers and marketers. After the demos were over, several people from well-known companies introduced themselves. Maybe we can get something going with them…more on that later.
So now we are back home at WOT HQ, recovering from jet lag and excitedly plastering our laptops with the stickers we got from everyone. A big thanks to Mozilla, Internet Explorer 8, Google Chrome and OneRiot for a great day. We look forward to Add-on-Con 2010.