At last year’s Information Industry Summit (IIS) the room was all abuzz about the impeding announcement of Apple’s tablet — what we now know is the iPad. A short 12 months later the app revolution has begun. ProQuest CEO Marty Kahn drove the “Moving from Wired to Wireless” theme of this year’s IIS home when he said, “Paid apps are enabling us to dream again about paid content.” For years we’ve heard publishers and other content creators complaining about their inability to make money in the new web-based info economy, but with the popularity of apps on the rise companies see an opportunity to lure customers back — and even get them to pay for content again. Of course, it’s never really that simple is it?

Sophisticated consumers demand value for their dollar, and events like IIS seek to find the companies offering that value and ask them to share what they know. Open First CEO Ted Shelton says that 2011 is predicted to see another 10 billion (yes, BILLION) app downloads as the Android operating system continues to spread and the iPhone expands to Verizon. Shelton advises companies not to simply “dehydrate” their content, shrinking it to fit a mobile screen, but to open up APIs to let employees, partners, and perhaps even the public create apps that contextualize, connect, and facilitate collaboration.

Interestingly enough, the first day of the conference coincided with President Obama’s State of the Union. After the CODiE Awards dinner — where companies like InfoDesk, Moreover Technologies, ZoomInfo, PitchBook, DowJones, and Alacra won awards — I rushed back to my hotel to watch the address where President Obama said, “In America, innovation doesn’t just change lives, it is how we make our living.” It seemed a fitting end to day one of IIS, much of which was spent listening to the SIIA Preview Companies pitching their start-ups and ideas to potential investors and partners — looking to fund the next generation of innovation.