Its been announced that the European version of the Web 2.0 Expo, an extension of the hugely successful web conference held in San Francisco, has been cancelled.
O’Reilly Media, organisers of both events, commented on their blog “Due to the uncertain economic situation of many companies, our American colleagues, the organizer O’Reilly Media, Inc. and Techweb, unfortunately, have to decide, with the Conference Web 2.0 Expo Europe this year to be suspended”.
Read the full translated version of their blog here

The event, held in Berlin, is only two years old and seemed to be gaining momentum. Whilst it was always going to take time to build and gain the credibility the San Francisco conference enjoys, many European entrepreneurs attended last year, which made for some valuable discussion and a great opportunity to network and make new business contacts.

European start-up’s are already challenged enough with the current economic conditions and I believe news like this just compounds the challenge we all face in trying to consolidate our market positions, focus on delivering great web products and generate revenues during these difficult times. My fear is for those we are all seeking to influence, the end user and the “paying” customer (in many cases two different demographics) and for a great number of start up’s, VC’s/angels, it solidifies opinion that pre-revenue, pre proof of principle technology businesses are more prone to risk than usual.

Naturally I disagree and through experience know that there are some amazingly talented start-up’s out there (especially in London) with very smart people and products.
Conversely, with entrepreneurs forced to scale back and drill down their focus, now is a great time to show confidence in the start up community.
Just go along to a DrinkTank London event or one of many events organised in London (& across Europe every month) and you’ll realise founders and co-workers in start-ups are buoyant, resilient, passionate and hell bent on making their companies successful.

I just wish people would stop convincing themselves these are troubled times and find ways of using the challenges we face to their advantage.

What would I do if I was still managing a start up?
1) Get the team as lean as possible and bus/dev orientated
2) Move to cloud hosting
3) Cut out all paid advertising and concentrate on smart PR to generate awareness
4) Utilise the web & social media to extend your reach and get new users/win new business
5) Develop sustainable user-get-user initiatives
6) Talk to your competitors or strategic partners about JV’ing or collaborating. You’re all in the same boat so work together not against each other.
7) Think about giving your people more skin in the game by sacrificing some salary for shares. Make it worth their while.

Other European web conferences in 2009 include:
Le Web
The Next Web
Plugg