The future of web computing is in the cloud, the Amazon cloud that is. Amazon Web Services is offering tremendous value for web developers of all shapes and sizes, with accessible service and incredible fire power to run apps, and store rich media content. I attended the Amazon Web Services Start-Up Event yesterday, held in Chelsea, New York city. After the brief introduction to the range of services offered by Amazon, four New York city start-ups talked about their experience using AWS. Each one focused their work in a different field. For example, the Brooklyn based drop.io, a simple real-time sharing and collaboration app outfit, explained their workflow and how Amazon is helping them leverage the use of their web services. They have no physical hosting facilities and they work entirely on Amazon’s framework, which is amazing for a 4-man-operation to say the least. Another interesting example comes from a biotech company that uses the computing capacity of AWS EC2 to calculate models of clusters and human molecules.

It was refreshing to hear stories of web startups like these and listen to how they have leveraged the Amazon service, where 1GB of data storage costs 15 cents and bandwidth transfer about the same. It makes complete sense for any web developer and start-up, where costs are always a priority. If you missed this great event, here’s a link to the slideshows presented.