The conference was an excellent event for me. It gave me real insight about where the web is going next and on the seriousness and progress rate of the current developments. In the opening panel (video below) Ron Conway describes the real-time web as having multiple multi-billion dollar opportunities. He goes so far as to compare the current development with the early days at Google, when they still hadn’t figured out a business model and could only imagine what an impact Google would have on how we use the web today. Watch the video below for the full opening panel on ‘The Realtime Opportunity’ …

The day was packed with interesting panels and presentations and after getting an idea of how far people and companies are along in developing new platforms, tools and services, I have to say I am once again astonished. The world might be in a recession but Silicon Valley is bursting from the mass of innovation it’s producing, and its buzzing with people who will eventually turn that innovation into striving businesses.

I keep repeating myself but every time I am in the Valley I notice its biggest advantage in the tech sector: A huge amount of people who want to try new stuff – not just entrepreneurs but also consumers and businesses of all sizes. This results in new ideas getting traction early on. By the time the rest of the world notices a new idea like twitter already has a couple of million users, and the rest of the world watches as they reach critical mass.

TechCrunch put on a nice after party and I met a lot of people from last year and some people I have only met online so far. All in all it was a great trip that opened my eyes with regards to the next big wave of innovation. I look forward to taking the opportunities that come with it .

Oh, at the conference someone noticed that I didn’t wear socks in my business shoes so I had to explain my reasons on camera. Watch the third video under the ‘Channel’ button in the embedded video box below!

Finally, we would like the thank TechCrunch and contributor Jason Kincaid for all the positive coverage during this and prior launches. TechCrunch is considered a leader in news and technology websites and we would like to express our appreciation for their continued support of our Canadian start-up. See you on SmibsNet!

The Smibs staff was in agreement when Peter won the August Capital tickets that this would be a great opportunity to coincide with the launch of our show, a concept that has been ruminating around the Smibs lab for weeks now. The idea is simple: informative, to-the-point video blogging from our small business to yours. We want to provide viewers with a space of exchange between entrepreneurs, small businesses and industry, harvesting the knowledge needed to change how business works. As always here at Smibs, we want to help your business Grow Smart!

Our daily Grow Smart 180 (GS180) show is 180 seconds dedicated to no-nonsense ideas and solutions for your small business. We want to show you how you can turn short bouts of inspiration into long-term success. Every week or two we will be doing a longer, more detailed 15 minute segment interviewing other talented, risk-taking professionals in the search for more Grow Smart business ingredients.

From one passionate, ambitious, crazy bootstrapping group of entrepreneurs to another, we’ll be sharing valuable lessons learned as well as the mistakes that keep us tireless business owners on the top of our game.

We’ll do it daily, we’ll keep it short, and we hope you’ll follow us and see what’s going on here in the Smibs lab! Check it out at http://tv.smibs.com and please enjoy.

A big thank you to the TechCrunch team and happy birthday for their third anniversary!