It’s rare that I say something like my above title, but really, get to the Web 2.0 Expo by hook or by crook and make it to my panel Tuesday at 2:40pm.

Here’s why. I’ve got Stewart Butterfield (Flickr), Joshua Schachter (Del.icio.us) and Biz Stone (Xanga, Blogger, Twitter) all on one panel who are going to answer my probing and insightful questions about “Building Awesome Web Sites & Services Using the Power of Happy Users” and you should really be there.

Web development has become emancipated from the version/release cycle of shrink-wrapper software. Production cycles can now literally be as short as a day. Product can be released before there is even a company or name on it, which means users (aka YOUR CUSTOMERS) can be die hard enthusiasts before you’re even on a dedicated server. The wealth of communication tools the web offers also means that users can be just as involved in the development process as the people at the office.

Dogster was able to save what would have been hundreds of thousands in 1999 by bringing in our members to help with once high-budget items like Market Research, Q&A, and Recruitment. Stewart, Joshua, and Biz’s bis’es have all had massive engineering and product made entirely by happy users. This is all wonderful, but there’s plenty of hard reality this must bump up against and plenty of lessons learned. I can’t wait for it to start. This would actually be excellent fodder for a techie/mba crossover book. Any ghost writer reading this should give me a call email me … turns out I hate the phone.

Other must catch panels at web2.0 expo are:

• Scalable Web Architectures: Common Patterns and Approaches
  Cal Henderson (Flickr, Yo!)
• Starting Up 2.0: Strategies for Pitching, Financing & Growing Your Web 2.0 Startup
  Jeff Clavier, Rob Hayes
• The People Formerly Known as the Audience
  Derek Powazek & Heather Champ
• Venture Capital 2.0: Bright Future or Broken Forever?
  Hornik, Arrington, Kopelman & more
• Web 2.0: Show Me the Money
  Jeremy Liew
• Reality Bites: The Future of Gaming + Virtual Worlds 2.0
  Ito, Koster, Wu, Sherman
  (Craig Sherman was an early friend of Dogster. Hi Craig ;)

See you there.