Web2Expo isn’t just a spill-over conference; it’s now got an identity of its own. If the folks at Web2Summit speculate and scheme, then it’s left to the Web2Expo attendees to figure out how to build what their less grounded peers have already promised.

There are lots of good sessions for web operations types — I saw some great presentations on web performance from the team behind YSlow there, for example. And there have even been spinoffs from this conference: Velocity, for example, focuses specifically on web operations with an open source angle, targeted at the hands-on operators who build things.

While Web2Summit remains speculative, a kind of TED-meets-Wired afternoon tea of cordial chats, Web2Expo is a lot more hands-on. This year, there’s a greatly expanded show floor (the buzz caught the attention of many companies hoping to tap into the web buildout. Several members of the Bitcurrent team will be attending the event, both to cover it and to help out with panels such as the one on next-generation databases.

This seemed like a recurring theme this year. Most of the companies had sentences like “your content, anytime, anywhere.” Their slogans were idyllic, speculative, wonderful, blue-sky narratives that reflected how consumers are using their electronic devices for a better tomorrow.

On the way here, I fired up my little HP printer. It was low on ink, so it offered to print me a page saying which cartridges I needed.

Let me repeat that: It offered to use more ink because it was out of ink.

That’s so brazen, it’s unbelievable. But it’s damned focused.

People taking pictures of Sony’s 27″ OLED TV

Sure, the thing is amazing. It made me feel like I was seeing something for real, but through the eyes of a child who’d just opened them, bright and astonished. I turned around and the other televisions and monitors looked pale and miserable. But really, if you’re going to take a picture of the picture and look at it on a TV that isn’t an OLED… why bother?

Showing off Formula One racecars at a green tradeshow

CES announced that it was going to be carbon-neutral. I’m not sure they bought the carbon offsets for the huge clouds of black smoke spewing from the engines of BMW’s exhibit, where drivers revved their engines and burned their tires.

People taking pictures of Phillips’ 3D TV

Same problem, different TV. Sure, those dice came rolling right out at you from the screen. But they’re not going to roll out of your camera unless it has the WOWvx wizardry the Dutch company plans to bring to market in two years’ time.

Pricegrabber.com, with a booth at CES

This is a huge building filled with two kinds of people: Those who make their money building electronics, and those who make their money selling electronics. It’s not clear why either of them would want to talk to you about how you could help customers compare prices and squeeze their margins.

Microsoft’s foray into children’s books

The brilliant “Mommy, Why is There a Server in the House?” children’s book that Redmond was giving out had gems like, “Offices are why people get grumpy and say bad words,” and “you can even share files with your uncle who smells like bark.” Not sure the MS Office group liked that first line. The book is hilarious. Gates’ swansong video was great, too.

Then again, maybe it isn’t. The fine print in the foreleaf says,

Use of Windows Home Server’s remote access features may require additional services from your broadband provider, such as access to certain “ports” that some providers may block for some customers on some service plans.

If you can get past the fact that the sentence belongs in the gallery of misused quotation marks, it’s frightening to see a concrete example of the erosion of net neutrality. And it’s scary that when you do a Google search for Net Neutrality, all the unpaid links want it, and the one paid ad is from a telecom lobby group. Sort of makes it clear who wins on each side of the argument, no?