Today is my second day at the AJAXWorld conference in Santa Clara, California. Compared to last year, the expo floor seems to have more than doubled with new sponsors and exhibitors displaying their latest rich Web technologies.  There have also been a lot of product announcements at the show.

An InfoWorld article says Nexaweb Hails Mashups, and a ComputerWorld article says OpenAjax Alliance Hails Mashups. Everyone seems to be hailing mashups at this year's AJAXWorld. Now that the valuation metrics changed for startup companies who are getting ready for their big payoff day (like Zimbra's 350M score last week), any buzzword associated with a bleeding-edge technology company can affect those valuations big time. I completely agree with Doug Levine on this new era of valuations.

There was another interesting announcement from Microsoft yesterday about Astoria Web Services. Actually there has been a  lot of press around AJAXWorld this year, but the buzz on the expo floor is "Whatever happened to Adobe?"

One attendee I was talking to last night at the opening reception said Adobe was also missing in action last week at the Gartner show. Microsoft announces Silverlight, and Adobe goes "missing in action" at one of the most significant rich Web app shows of the year. It is interesting, very interesting indeed.