Last week at Web 2.0 there were a number of great presentations (so I hear). One theme that seems to have emerged from the event was the less is the new more.

I don’t know the specific order, but I know two parties that contributed. Seth Godin did a presentation on Squidoo, a wonderful project I am proud to have helped with. As Seth noted:

“For a long time, the web has been about more. More links, more traffic, more hits, more choices. In the face of all that more, many sites (and most surfers) are not getting what they want. This free ebook proposes a different way of achieving your goals: less.”

Source: Seth’s Blog, “The next free ebook (Squidoo!)”

Jason Fried, the vocal developer/founder of 37Signals also gave a presentation. He’s commented on it at his blog:

I want to talk about the concept of less. And more specifically the idea of using less as a competitive advantage.

Conventional wisdom says to beat your competitors you need to one-up them. If they have 4 features, you need 5. Or 15. Or 25. If they’re spending X, you need to spend XX. If they have 20, you need 30.

Source: Signal vs. Noise, “Less as a competitive advantage: My 10 minutes at Web 2.0″

Jason goes on to list these points:

• Less Money
• Less People
• Less Time
• Less Abstractions
• Less Software
• More Constraints

I would have to say that in my heart of hearts, I agree with them both. Living that way is an entirely different story.