At Supernova

Spent the morning at Supernova, the business technology conference in San Francisco. Tomorrow I’ll post Just posted to Flickr a photo of FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps (forgot my flash card connector).

I moderated this morning’s opening panel, “The Rise of the VideoNet,” with Jeremy Allaire (Brightcove), Jonathan Taplin (USC Annenberg Center), Mary Hodder (Dabble), and Robert Levitan (Pando). We spent a really good hour talking about the rapid rise of video sites — 225 in all today. Mary Hodder will soon post an entry on Napsterization with a breakdown of video site traffic numbers (YouTube leads the way with 42 percent, MySpace with 24 percent, and so on).

We showed one of the best Mentos and Coke videos to kick things off.

The panel discussion will be podcast. Live audio streaming of all general sessions, as well as podcasts, blogs, and videoblogs, will be available here.

Here are some notes I took during Kopps’ important talk:

“Centralized end user control is increasingly at risk. Broadband providers are increasing control over what comes into our homes over their pipes. … Cable and DSL providers control 98% of the broadband market. We’re nowhere near to seeing a ubiquitous third or fourth player to turn broadband into a vibrantly competitive market.

“If the marketplacde is truly competitive, then government should get out of the way and let a thousand flowers bloom.” But currently, the bandwidth providers exercise a great deal of control over how you may use your connection.

“I’m amazed at the speed with which this issue came to the attention of the Congress, opening up a national discussion on the principles. … The [broadband providers] want to inverse the real democratic genius of the internet. … Entrepreneurs may have to ask permission to innovate from the owners of the broadband pipe.

“We need to change the terms of the debate. It’s not a net neutrality issue so much as an Internet freedom issue. … Anyone who thinks the internet is going to halt media consolidationi has to understand that the internet may be heading down this very same path.

“These issues are too large to be left to a handful of broadband regulators. We desperately need your input. We need more of your input than we’ve been getting. Decisions without you are too often decisions against you.”

Here’s Colette Voegel blogging about today’s sessions. Here are some others.

JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.