The second edition of ETel is returning to Burlingame, California next Februrary 27-March 1, and the headline says it all. All you telco managers, hackers, mobile gamers, VCs, communications projects researchers, and phone phreakers can sign up, starting right now. And if you do it before the new year, you’ll save some extra cash too.

“Don’t miss this wake up call,” writes our program co-chairs Surj Patel and Brady Forrest. PR Gal’s thoughts exactly–the atmosphere during last year’s event was positively charged with inspiration, and if you have any interest in telephony at all, I guarantee ETel 2007 will energize you more than any other VoIP/mobile/telephony event out there.

By all accounts it was a smashing event last year, and we’re pretty excited to be working with the Ruby Central guys on RailsConf 2007, which is happening May 17-20 in Portland, OR. We’ve opened the call for participation, so submit those proposals, and tell a friend! The deadline is November 27. Even if you don’t want to speak, we encourage you to share your ideas–head over to the RailsConf 2007 wiki to post your comments and suggestions.

SK Communications runs Cyworld, a hugely popular social networking site in Korea. Or, as the article describes, “The company does not operate Cyworld — its customers do.”

SK Communications president Yoo Hyun-oh attempted to nail down the will-o-the-wisp that is Web 2.0, the much-touted next stage of the Internet. “Web 2.0 is philosophy,” Yoo mused. “At the center of it are openness and sharing through which many nameless individual users make Web 2.0 more powerful.” He will be a keynote speaker at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco in November.