Invitation Requests Now Being Accepted

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 18 — Web 2.0 Summit, which took place Nov. 5-7, 2008, focused on how the Web can help solve the world’s most pressing problems, creating interest that sold the event out for the fifth consecutive year. The theme “Web Meets World” explored how the Web is changing the world — touching healthcare, finance, global warming — while simultaneously engaging those outside the industry to look to the Web for solutions. Scores of speakers challenged the current economic malaise with their revolutionary ideas for Web 2.0 innovation, business growth and problem solving. Due to the positive response, conference organizers have begun accepting invitation requests for Web 2.0 Summit 2009 taking place in San Francisco October 20-22.

The invitation-only Web 2.0 Summit featured a lineup of notable speakers including former U.S. Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, Elon Musk of Tesla Motors, Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, Shai Agassi with a Better Place and Lance Armstrong. Program chair John Battelle, chairman and publisher of Federated Media, and co-moderator Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, presented a program in which more than 70 extraordinary thinkers and leaders in healthcare, genetics, energy, the environment, finance, global business, and politics spoke. An intimate setting capped at 1,000 attendees gave everyone a chance to participate and engage with these thought leaders through incisive plenary sessions, cut-through-the-hype conversations, rapid-fire “high order bits,” “show me” presentations and in-depth workshops. All keynote videos and presentations from the conference can be found at http://www.web2summit.com.

Read the full press release.

O’Reilly Open Source Convention Calls for Innovation
OSCON Proposals Invited

Sebastopol, CA—Dec 15 2008—Now that big business has grasped the principles of open source, the open source community can get down to business. New times demand new ideas, and OSCON, the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, has opened its call for innovation. O’Reilly Media and program chairs Allison Randal and Edd Dumbill invite proposals for tutorials, sessions, and panels for OSCON, happening July 20 - 24, 2009, in San Jose, CA.

“Accomplishing great things with limited resources is the open source way of life,” says Allison. “We hope you’ll join us and share your solutions. We live in a time of enormous challenges: economic, environmental, political, and social. Open source software and the open source community have much to offer as we work to solve the world’s problems, to keep moving toward a better future.”

Read the full press release.

Not so long ago, conventional wisdom was that the publishing industry was somehow immune to many of the developments that have transformed every other form of media over the past few years. Book publishers held a deep and abiding faith in the power of the printed volume to withstand the insurgency of digital media.

That faith has fractured a bit over the past year as publishers have watched the surprising success of the Kindle and the emergence of the iPhone as a viable digital reading device.

Suddenly publishers are racing to come to terms with their digital future. In recent months we’ve seen publishers delivering iPhone apps, experiment with DRM-free content, and offering free downloads.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve seen this exact same transformation take place in nearly every other form of media. From past history we know that once the digital media ball starts rolling, the status quo can change very rapidly. It is, no doubt, an exciting time to watch the publishing industry, but a scary time to actually be part of that industry — unless, of course, you’re open to new business models and a complete reinvention of everything you do.

There’s no better place to watch the future of publishing unfold than at O’Reilly Media’s Tools of Change conference, the annual event that attracts industry professionals, visionaries, and thought leaders.

TOC 09 is scheduled to run from February 9 through 11th in New York City. This year’s event features a full slate of presentations and panel discussions from some of the industry’s leading thinkers, including Tim O’Reilly, Jeff Jarvis, Cory Doctorow, and our own Kassia Krozser, who will be leading the “Smart Women Read eBooks” panel.

Last year’s conference was sold out, and I have no doubt the same will be true this year. While the economy is bad and companies everywhere are looking to cut expenses, TOC is one of those events that’s just too important for publishers to miss.

Read the article.

The blogosphere continues to buzz about Gary Vaynerchuk’s presentation at Web 2.0 Expo New York back in September. “Gary is an outstanding speaker and a definite motivator,” wrote Ryan Leary just this week in his introduction to Gary’s presentation that he embedded on his blog.

This surprised me a little–I mean, Web 2.0 Expo New York wrapped a few months ago. Surely we’ve moved on to newer Web 2.0 topics by now? But the common thread in the references I’ve seen explains it, I think: Gary is very persuasively expressing his passion for what he does. His passion is inspiring and can be applied to just about any endeavor. (I should’ve watched the video frequently last month while I was doing NaNoWriMo, I might’ve put more words to paper…) He also uses his enthusiasm to prod us as well as encourage us–an engaging combination.

If you haven’t already, watch Gary’s presentation for yourself (heads-up: Gary uses adult language in his presentation):

Clay Shirky’s talk from Web 2.0 Expo SF back in April still rocks our video charts, too. And while Clay’s style is a bit more measured than Gary’s, the issues he raises around productivity and attention are equally compelling and vital.

A reminder that all of the Web 2.0 Expo keynote presentations from San Francisco, New York, and Europe are posted on blip.tv.

And if you still haven’t gotten enough Web 2.0 footage, all of the presentations from last month’s Web 2.0 Summit (yes, including Al Gore) plus selections from the 2007 edition.

Web 2.0 Expo co-chairs Jen Pahlka of Techweb and Brady Forrest of O’Reilly are busy putting together the program for the San Francisco edition of Web 2.0 Expo in April. Wonder who will be most-viewed this time next year…