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News from and about technology conferences.

  1. Jul01

    Announcing Widget Summit 2008

    Widget Summit logo

    I am hosting a my third annual Widget Summit conference November 3rd and 4th at Hotel Nikko in San Francisco. The two-day widget event will once again educate and connect a a widget ecosystem of publishers, toolmakers, developers, and service providers across a variety of platforms including desktop, mobile, web, and social networks. I enjoy taking a look beyond the hype with a sold-out audience interested in building better syndicated content experience through distributed widgets.

    The widget industry is constantly evolving as publishers extend their reach beyond their web address and into remote locations already bustling with activity. The popularity of a single site pales in comparison to the aggregate crowds gathered in front of their Windows Vista desktops, iPhones, or My Yahoo! homepages. In the past year we've seen new context added to our widget environments connecting us to the location, friend list, or shared application of our widget community wherever they may interact with our content. Today's smartest widgets enjoy a close bind with their parent platform's features, regularly poll their home base for relevant updates, and reach new audiences through targeted and integrated content interactions.

    At my first widget conference in 2006 we struggled with the name "widget" and this new distribution network most people interpreted as a Flash badge on MySpace. Last year iPhone web applications and the social canvas of Facebook was all the rage, with new opportunities in the enterprise slowly emerging through the rollout of Windows Vista and personal information dashboards powered by software as a service offerings from established consumer brands such as Google and Netvibes.

    A lot has changed in the widget space in the 8 months since the last Widget Summit. Widgets are going mainstream, with the startup valuations and press coverage to match. Somewhere among the fog of hype are useful opportunities to reach targeted audiences on their platform of choice. Let's take a look at some of the big changes we've seen since October 2007.

    • New collaborative technologies such as OpenSocial and its open-source reference container Apache Shindig are quickly creating new widget environments at companies that could not afford to create their own implementations from scratch. MySpace, Orkut, Hi5, LinkedIn, and Yahoo! have all committed to a standard set of widget APIs.
    • The Facebook platform is in the middle of its first big changes since its 2.0 release in May 2007. Shifting concepts of profile display, authoring, and member interaction will require new upgrades or fresh opportunities for completely new applications.
    • The iPhone continues to spark interest in mobile web app development based on single-browser environments. iPhone 2.0 will put smartphones in the hands of a worldwide audience for about the price of a ubiquitous iPod and hopefully expand mobile data opportunities.
    • Advertising networks have created separate product offerings specifically focused on widgets. DoubleClick syndicates and tracks widgets through its DART platform. AOL's Platform-A recently announced widget-specific advertising and sponsorship powered by TACODA's trail of cookie bounties.
    • The enterprise continues to adopt software as a service and widgets are no exception. Google, IBM, and Microsoft are extending their hosted software into large companies and bundling the latest widget technologies inside an integrated package.
    • Consumer electronics ship with widgets built-in. Your next car, GPS unit, television, or alarm clock may contain customized widget content.

    These are just a few of the large trends creating new opportunities for publishers extending the reach of their content through widgets. We'll cover all the major widget platforms and opportunities at this year's Widget Summit, providing the business sense and development basics to kick off your new widget initiatives in 2009.

    You may have noticed this blog grow quiet over the past few months as I rebuilt the conference software behind Widget Summit and aligned the many business details needed to create the best possible experience. In the next week I'll share some of the technical details behind my new sites and services.

    Registration for Widget Summit is now open with early bird pricing of $795 for the two-day conference in downtown San Francisco on November 3rd and 4th (the Monday and Tuesday before Web 2.0 Summit). I hope you can join us for what should be our best conference yet!

  2. Apr14

    Customizing conference speeches for your audience

    Speaking at a conference can be a hit-or-miss event. Next week I will take the stage at Web 2.0 Expo for a three-hour workshop on Web 2.0 Best Practices: expressive HTML, feed syndication, and widgets. Delivering technical content longer than The Godfather is an intimidating yet worthy challenge. I like to tailor my talks for each audience, dive deep when given the opportunity, and connect with new smart people.

    Over the past few weeks new conversations have emerged regarding how conferences must change to better suit their audience. As a conference producer, conference speaker, and attendee I have many opinions on running a great show but today's post will focus on speakers. In this post I will share three speaking tips that keep coming up in my conversations with other speakers in the industry.

    1. Gauge audience skill levels
    2. Prepare more content than needed
    3. Avoid card collectors

    Gauge audience skill levels

    I like to address audiences with an intermediate to advanced knowledge of web development, content syndication, and widget platforms. I am never quite sure how much my audience already knows and how quickly I can move past the basic bits of knowledge about a particular product or technology. I typically begin a longer presentation with a few technical questions for the audience to set the pace and depth of my talk.

    At last year's Web 2.0 Expo I decided to gauge my audience's experience with XML and syndication basics by a show of hands. I exposed the following bullet points one-by-one with rising levels of difficulty.

    Does this scare you?

    1. & vs. &
    2. 2007-04-17T16:50:00-07:00
    3. HTTP status codes: 200, 304, 410

    I was pleasantly surprised by my audience's reaction to these questions. Only a few people in the audience admitted to not knowing the difference between an escaped and unescaped characters and the ampersand entity reference. A few more were unable to decipher an ISO 8601 date and time. Approximately 10% of the room knew the difference between Found, Not Modified, and Gone HTTP status codes.

    Prepare more content than needed

    I typically throw out 20% of my presentation based on the skill level of my audience and unforeseen time limitations. Throwing out my carefully-prepared slides was a big mental leap but it allows me to refocus my message on-the-fly to better match the conference, its topics, and its attendees.

    Armed with my on-the-fly audience demographics from my earlier questions I may quickly skim over basics on my way to more advanced content. I may skip a topic already over-covered during previous sessions. Quickly flashing more advanced slides on screen on my way to my final presentation slide may also prompt conversations after my talk with more advanced members of the audience curious to hear even more.

    I prepared a 10-minute talk for last year's Web 2.0 Summit. I did not realize the organizers start the timer for your talk when the conference chair takes the stage for introductions, not when you reach the podium. John Battelle provided a nice introduction but my presentation was suddenly cut to 8.5 minutes instead of the prepared 10. I stuck to the basics for the Cx0 crowd and threw out the final 20% of my presentation.

    Avoid card collectors

    Some conference attendees are business card collectors. They don't actually engage in conversation or ask questions on site but will come up to the stage to collect a new slip of paper from every session, perhaps for a more itemized expense report or a vast spam database.

    After my presentation I like to stick around and answer 1-on-1 questions with session attendees. I place a small stack of business cards on one end of the stage for easy self-service while I continue to engage members of the audience 1-on-1. The conversationalist crowd is a bit thinner and may invite new participants.

    Summary

    Speaker content can and should adapt to the audience. Conference organizers should help their speakers better understand audience composition, but it's also possible for a speakers to step up and deliver a stellar individual performance.

  3. Jan03

    MacSB Macworld dinner

    I am once again organizing a dinner gathering during the Macworld conference for Mac small business owners and developers. This year's MacSB Macworld dinner will take place on Tuesday, January 15, starting at 6.p.m. at Chaat Cafe in San Francisco. We will discuss the latest keynote announcements, plan future iPhone applications, and eat Indian food.

    Chaat Cafe Google Maps

    Chaat Café is located at 320 3rd Street (corner of 3rd and Folsom) in downtown San Francisco, one block from Macworld and the Moscone conference center. The restaurant has free Wi-Fi and power outlets near some tables, so bring your laptop to show off your latest creations. You will order food and drink individually near the restaurant entrance and pay only for what you personally eat or drink (typically less than $10). Metered parking is free after 6 p.m. or you may park in the building's parking garage (enter on 3rd Street) with two hours of validated parking if you choose to drive.

    Yes we want to develop for iPhone

    Past MacSB gatherings in 2007 and in 2006 have been good opportunities to reflect on the changing Mac software market, share tips with like-minded small business owners, or attend group therapy as Apple just annihilated your product with their own software release. Mac fans are welcome to come out and meet the independent developers of some of their favorite apps.

    I have warned the restaurant staff to expect a big crowd but you can help make things run a bit smoother by leaving an RSVP in the comments of this post or on Upcoming.org.

  4. Oct05

    Widget Summit schedule complete

    The Widget Summit schedule is now complete, and I am pretty happy with the results. My goal for the conference is to provide two days of intensive education about the current state of the widget industry and share best practices with the many new publishers entering the space. This year's conference spans two days, October 15-16, covering both the business and implementation of widgets. I will share some of my speaker notes before the conference, but first let's take a look at some of the overarching themes of Widget Summit.

    I've invited the key people behind the platforms to share their first-hand expert knowledge and answer detailed question. You'll hear from the creator of the Facebook Platform, Dave Fetterman, instead of a vision talk or summary from Mark Zuckerberg. I'm sure Mark might sell more tickets, but you can read the history of Facebook in your favorite business press.

    Mobile

    We'll have the heads of third party widget development for both Nokia S60 and Apple iPhone on stage talking about new ways developers can create rich applications for smartphones. Yes, Apple does have a small team dedicated to independent software developers on the iPhone.

    We'll also have University of Maryland professor Ben Bederson sharing his many years of experience designing for mobile displays and interfaces.

    Monetization

    Publishers are pretty familiar with measurement and monetization of traffic on their own websites, but widgets are still a source of confusion. Traditional web measurement tools such as Google Analytics have extended their reach into widgets. We've also seen new widget-specific entrants such as Clearspring and Gigya wrap widgets in a proprietary container for new forms of measurement. All three companies will present during the Widget Measurement panel at Widget Summit.

    Once you have measured your widget audience, how do you monetize? Traditional advertising solutions such as DoubleClick have extended their reach to power in-widget advertising. VP of Rich Media Ari Paparo will share the latest ways big companies are experimenting with widget advertising. We will also have some of the largest widget-specific advertising networks on stage, virtual currency site Peanut Labs and widget promotion network RockYou. The Widget Advertising panel will present widgets as a new revenue source for content syndication.

    Implementation

    It's not enough to simply talk about building a Facebook application or a Dashboard widget. Publishers want to know how much work is involved, the skills needed to create widget content for each platform, and the features necessary to make sure their investment in time and money is ultimately successful. We'll have sessions at Widget Summit that walk you through the steps needed to create an application on Facebook, a sidebar widget for Windows Vista, or a JavaScript widget for blog sidebars.

    If a widget book existed it would likely be out of date at the time of printing. The best way to learn about the latest technologies and implementations is to directly engage the creators of the widget platform and the people creating new widget content every day. They will help you avoid common mistakes, expose a few short cuts, and make sure you don't make some of the most common mistakes.

    Summary

    Widget Summit is just over a week away and should provide an in-depth education for anyone considering a widget strategy or deeper syndication involvement. The schedule is now complete, with some of the best available speakers in their subject areas sharing their expert knowledge on stage. Each speaker is directly involved in widgets at his or her company, and uniquely positioned to answer in-depth questions either on-stage or in the audience.

    Tickets are still available if you would like to join us for two days of widget education and networking.

  5. Jun24

    World Cup vs. Gnomedex

    Crespo Podolski

    Germany plays Argentina this Friday, June 30, at 8 a.m. Pacific time. If you're at Gnomedex I'll have a viewing party in my room at the Edgewater. I'm rooting for Argentina.

    I'll be missing Chris Pirillo's opening statements and Mike Arrington's discussion, but no way they can't compete with Germany playing Argentina in Berlin. Sorry Om, I might miss the beginning of your session too.

    Given the possible matchups on Saturday such as England vs. Portugal or Brazil vs. Spain/France these will be tough choices for morning sessions.

  6. Jun23

    Bloggercon early thoughts

    Marc sleeping

    I am attending Bloggercon for the next two days, listening, participating and leading conversations on the world of blogging. Some quick observations from the last three hours of the conference:

    The live conversation surrounding me is competing with the conversations happening in the blogosphere. If the conversation becomes uninteresting I open my feed aggregator and see what's new among another few hundred sources of information. (pictured above: Marc Canter sleeping).

    Bloggercon is a non-commercial conference focused on users, with no commercial messages or pitches allowed to leave your mouth. A few attendees wore t-shirts with messaging instead, letting the room know about their latest product without even opening their mouth.

    Despite the 220+ signups on the Bloggercon wiki the room is about half-full.

  7. Jun17

    Standards for Users

    Railroad tracks

    When I think of standards I think of the Stephenson gauge. Two pieces of steel laid at 4' 8.5" apart carries rail traffic for 60% of the world's railroads. The standard has been around for centuries, allowing easy interoperability between rail lines from different companies and countries, creating new and cheaper opportunities for commerce around the world. Railroad companies did not always believe in the power of standards but eventually came together for big contracts and their rewards.

    Next Friday I will lead a discussion at Bloggercon IV about the affects of standards on the lives of users. How can cooperation and interoperability lead to happy users, increased profits, and more participation online?

    In the world of railroads companies varied the width of their rails to force a transfer of goods from Company A using the trains and workers of Company B. These increased costs meant more direct control over commerce by the companies laying the lines, but ultimately made travel by rail unreliable and costly, forcing customers to utilize other methods of transport such as a river barge. The arrival of cross-country travel and military contracts in the United States eventually forced standardization and better options for users.

    In the online world we rely on a few standards to make life easy for users. The W3C activity around HTML provides a common base for implementors and authors. We still have to tweak our pages for optimal use in each browser, but a common baseline reduces some of the work involved in deploying all over the world.

    The world of feed aggregators interoperates using the OPML file format for subscription portability. Users can post to their blog and backup their entries using the application of their choice thanks to standards such as the MetaWeblog API and the Atom Publishing Protocol.

    Open standards create open competition, eliminating lock-in and allowing users to pick the best services for their wants and needs. The door remains open, but companies focused on their users believe you are happy enough within their walls you'll never want to head for the doors.

    What are your experiences with standards or the lack thereof? What new standards and interoperability would you like to see companies develop to thrill their users? Bloggercon is part of the user-centered summer of love. Let's chat about the things you love and hate about your experiences online and how collaboration and standards can help.

  8. Mar08

    Conference WiFi is a marketing play

    I'm at the Emerging Technology conference in San Diego with some cool new applications and services being announced on stage and in the hallways. The problem is, no one is able to blog about what's happening in real-time due to an almost non-existant network connection (even for presenters wanting to live demo).

    A thought for conference organizers: wireless connectivity is part of your marketing budget. It allows the audience to research products and sponsors, connect to other attendees to arrange meetings and get-togethers, and enables more people to attend knowing they will be able to simply connect back to the office if anything requires immediate attention.

    Great connectivity leads to a bigger worldwide mind share for everyone involved in the conference. Assign a specific sponsor to the WiFi connectivity costs (WiFi by Cisco, Intel Centrino, etc.) and let freedom ring.

    Tags:
  9. Oct05

    Web 2.0 launchpad

    I am attending the Web 2.0 conference today and decided to crash the Launchpad session to see what's new with a variety of companies. The Launchpad provides 6 minutes for a company to introduce and demonstrate a new product to the audience in a manner very similar to the DEMO conference.

    Socialtext just announced at Web 2.0 a move into completely open source by Q1 2006. Socialtext is currently only 20% open source.

    Rollyo is an interface to Yahoo! Search allowing users to restrict the scope of their search to specific sites. Dave Pell described it as "Yahoo! provides the engine, we provide the steering wheel." Rollyo users can select up to 25 sites to restrict their search, and share their saved scoped search publicly and placed into categories and identified by tags.

    Joyent is a web-based groupware suite covering mail, calendar, contacts, and file sharing. The site uses tags to classify content, Ajax to browse, and RSS to subscribe to changing content. The company's web server was unavailable for me during their demonstration, making me wonder about the company's scalability.

    Bunchball is a social application focused on helping people connect for activities. Bunchball provides social architecture to developers. Users join the site, create a profile, and join groups. Developers provide the content and hosted applications and Bunchball collects a portion of the revenue from each developer.

    Zimbra is an open groupware company that integrates across calendars, contacts, mail, and arbitrary web services to provide contextual information in your mail reader. The software is available as a hosted service as well as a download. Is a date mentioned in an e-mail? Mouse-over the date and Zimbra will show you what else you have scheduled that day. Would you like to see more information about a person mentioned in an e-mail? Hover over his name, and see contact information, including direct contact information such as Skype.

    Tags: , , , , ,

  10. Mar17

    Jonathan Abrams Friendster SXSW Interactive keynote

    Heath Row of Fast Company posted a partial transcript of Jonathan Abrams' keynote at SXSW Interactive.

    A lot of people want to create a viral service. Friendster goes beyond this viral marketing that people talk about. It's something I call viral nagging. People get peer pressure from their friends to sign up, improve their profile, and change their photo. That's more powerful than anything I could do. Instead of a site like Match.com where you build a site and hope your friends find you, you build your site with them.

    • Posted on March 17, 2004 at 1:38PM
    • Updated at 10:56PM
    • By Niall Kennedy, a web technologist from
      San Francisco, California, United States

Niall Kennedy Niall Kennedy is a web technologist in San Francisco, California in the United States. I am very interested in the world of... MORE »

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