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Structure 08 Tickets: Almost Sold Out
It’s time to exhale: Our first Structure 08 conference, slated to be held on June 25th in San Francisco, is almost sold out. With a week to go we have just 25 tickets left, and I have to tell you that despite the long sleepless nights ahead, I’m pretty jazzed about the event.
Amongst ticket buyers, we’ve seen a lot of venture capitalists that are clearly looking at the infrastructure space with some interest, possibly for investments. Also attending will be a lot of people from large corporations as they try to make sense of this whole evolution. Despite how central this issue has become to my writing lately, the mix of people is surprising even to me.
And yes, I’m totally biased, but the line-up of speakers and panelists for the conference would give anyone a serious IQ turbo boost. I recently spent some one-on-one time with speakers such as Salesforce co-founder Parker Harris and Aster Data Systems’ Mayank Bawa, and was amazed by their depth of knowledge. Here’s a quick rundown of the keynotes, panels and workshops:
Keynotes: Werner Vogels (CTO, Amazon.com), Jim Crowe (CEO & President, Level 3 Communications), Greg Papadopoulous (CTO, Sun Microsystems)
Fireside Chats: Parker Harris (Co-founder, Salesforce.com), Dr. Mendel Rosenblum (Co-founder, VMware)
Mini-Notes: Debra Chrapaty (Microsoft), Dr. Larry Roberts (Founder, Anagran), Jonathan Yarmis (AMR Research), Zach Nelson (NetSuite), & Dr. Jonathan Koomey (Lawrence Berkeley National Labs) Drew Perkins (Co-Founder, Infinera)
Panels:
- Working the Clouds: NextGen Infrastructure for New Entrepreneurs
- The New New Stack: Re-examining the Internet Platform Chain
- The Race to the Next Database: Overclocking and Analytics Augment Your Data Layer
- Harnessing Explosive Growth: Infrastructure Strategies and Tactics
- Infrastructure On Demand: Should You Build Your Future on Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)?
- Eyes Wide Shut: Why is the VC Community Keeping Its Wallet Shut to Infrastructure?
Workshops:
- Google App Engine: Learn how to harness the power of Google’s global infrastructure for your idea
- Microsoft Data Center Secrets: Get insights from Microsoft’s infrastructure team on building out large deployments.
- Fenwick & West Venture Capital and Seed Financing: Interact with entrepreneurs and prominent angels focused on raising money for infrastructure ideas.
I want to take a moment to thank our media partners, who have helped spread the word. And of course, none of this would be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. There are many of them, and we thank them all:
If this story interests you then you should definitely check out our
upcoming conference, Structure 08.
18.41% of World Internet Users use Firefox!
Wow, Firefox has been steadily growing real fast… I remember about 2-3 years ago when Firefox use was at only about 5%.
Go Firefox! Kill IE for good.
The only thing with Internet Explorer is that a lot of foreign countries such as Korea, have adopted to use IE exclusively for internet banking, which you can not use Firefox for.
Still, more than 90% of population in Korea and other parts of the world use IE. Darn…
Net Applications, purveyors of web metrics data, published some interesting asides about Mozilla’s Firefox in this month’s newsletter. Specifically, they’re projecting that users of the world’s favorite alternative browser will account for 20% of all web traffic sometime in July.
What Is the Future of the Web?
Is Net Neutrality essential for democracy? What role will AI have in the future of the web? What will Web 4.0 look like? On June 11, in an attempt to answer these and other questions, Tim Berners-Lee and other leading web authorities will gather at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., for an old-fashioned debate with a social media twist: The content of the debate will be collaboratively created by web users, who can submit questions and promote them through a user-based ranking system similar to Digg. The most popular questions will form the basis of the debate, which will be webcast live. Viewers will also be able to interact with the panelists by submitting questions and comments in real time. For more details about this interactive event, plus instructions on how to submit and rank questions, go here.
Web
institute
polytechnic
Tim
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asides
Technology-News
RailsConf Is Almost Here: Get 15% Off Registration
RailsConf, the largest gathering of Rails developers, is fast approaching. The conference provides examples of business models, development paradigms, and design strategies; this year’s session, which will be held in Portland, Ore., from May 29-June 1, will also feature advanced-level topics and sessions, notably those centered around design or coding techniques, testing tools, and deployment techniques. As a media partner, GigaOM readers can get a 15 percent discount off registration; click here and enter discount code “rc08ggo.”
GSP East ticket discount
The East Coast version of Graphing Social Patterns, a conference for developers and marketers building and distributing apps for MySpace, Facebook and the myriad of other social networking platforms out there, will kick off next month in Washington, D.C. GSP East will tackle social networking from two angles — one, business and marketing; and two, app development and technical strategy. As GigaOM is a media partner for this event, which will run from June 9-11, our readers can save 15 percent off registration fees. To register, click here and use code “gspe08gig.”
What would you like on that $2.6M dollar pizza?
Being a registrar may not be fun, but domain auctions can still be. Pizza.com is up for grabs — that is, if you can come up with $2.6 million in the next 20 hours or so. Domain appraiser Zetetic says that 98 percent of names sell for under $10,000. But 15 percent of web traffic comes from people typing what they want right into the address bar, so college staples like pizza, vodka and sex fetch top dollar.
Wallstrip’s Dirty Humor, India’s Dirty Energy IPO
Online financial news show “Wallstrip” got a new host this week, Julie Alexandria, and she’s planning on spicing things up. NewTeeVee editor Liz Gannes has the interview.
Also this week, India saw its biggest-ever IPO debut: Reliance Power. So if it’s about new power, it must be green, right? In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Read more over on Earth2Tech.
Facebook Tries to Sell Out on “60 Minutes”
On Sunday night, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will appear on “60 Minutes” to tell the world that Facebook is in trouble. He doesn’t say that in so many words, of course, but his participation on the weekly news show, given the unlikelihood that many in Facebook’s existing demographic of 12-to-24-year-olds watch “60 Minutes” on a regular basis, signals that the social networking site is trying to connect with a larger audience.
Sure, Facebook has 60 million members and is valued at $15 billion, but it is still the No. 2 social network. To defend its lofty valuation, Facebook needs to grow its user base and figure out how to make money off of it, and those two things are looking like they may be mutually exclusive. Consider the reaction of the social networking site’s users to its Beacon advertising program. Om certainly didn’t think too highly of it.
But before the privacy agitators get excited all over again about the fact that Beacon collected and then posted purchases made on partner sites to all of your friends on an opt-out basis, it’s important to realize how fast users have let their privacy erode in the online world. Facebook may in fact be able to walk the line between building a community and selling that community to advertisers.
It has to. Zuckerberg gives several clues as to the catch-22 facing the social network in the interview, while also indicating that Facebook plans to continue pushing the envelope on advertising.
“It might take some work for us to get this exactly right. This is something we think is going to be a really good thing,” Zuckerberg tells correspondent Lesley Stahl about Beacon. “I mean, there have to be ads either way because we have to make money…We have 400 employees. We have to support all that and make a profit.”
Facebook’s shilling and advertising flubs show how hard it is to make money operating a social network, and how short-sighted people are when it comes to valuing these sites based on users. Advertisers want to see lots of engaged users on a site, but users don’t really want to see too much from advertisers. So Facebook has to walk a fine line to make both parties happy. If they can do it well, they’ll be a case study for building a social operating system. If they can’t, then they may become just another commodity.
And until Facebook figures all this out, the company apparently doesn’t plan on going public. Zuckerberg also told Stahl: “I think…what I can announce is that it is highly unlikely that we will go public in 2008 and when going public makes sense to do, we’ll do that.”
Destination Paris: 5 Things I Must Do
I am en route to Paris to attend the Le Web 3 conference. (If you are interested in attending the conference, you can get a 100 euro discount by going to this web site.) I have a day to myself — i.e. no conference duties. I am wondering, what are the five things I must do in Paris before I come back?
I want to know a great restaurant that doesn’t give anorexia to my charge card. Also, what is the state of Wi-Fi in Paris, because I need to use my N95 to make VoWiFi calls. Most importantly, I want to buy a cool laptop bag in Paris. Any recommendations on where to go?
Putting Web to work for Eco Change
The single most important issue of our time - global warming - is being empowered by the greatest communication revolution of our day. In other words, the fight against climate change will be waged by the new tools of the web — social networks, collaboration software and community sites.
O.K., so maybe I just made two really broad arguable statements, but I’ve spent quite a few hours at the Climate Summit in New York this week. And when Microsoft and The Clinton Foundation speak up, you tend to listen.
The duo announced a partnership yesterday to create and give away web-based tools for cities to manage their energy saving and CO2 emission reductions. The web tools will allow cities to figure out their carbon footprints, work on tracking their green initiatives, and share info with other cities.
This is just the latest example of web-based green services that are being created by companies to tap into the growing number of passionate communities looking to ’save the planet’ — through broadband.
Green web-based collaboration tools are a popular concept this week, and Business Objects and nonprofit Zerofootprint Toronto launched an online footprint calculator and social network recently. Software and business tools are moving online, so naturally collaboration over a timely subject would follow that trend.
The latest web 2.0 tools are getting green versions too. Green news-ranking site Hugg paints Digg in a shade of green. Green search engines like Greener.com and GreenMaven.com are adding green to online search. Yahoo launched its own green site recently and MySpace has a site dedicated to climate change.
Then there are the blogs and online news outlets that are launching green consumer and business coverage — TreeHugger, Grist, WorldChanging, Inhabitat (my sis), as well as sites like GreenBiz, Clean Break, and Cleantech Investing.
It’s a no-brainer that organizations and companies are gravitating towards using the web to organize and communicate about climate change. Media, content distribution, collaboration tools and communications are all migrating to the web, so why not put them to use for a crucial issue.
The topic of climate change is also uniquely suited to the web. The information is often localized and action-oriented — what’s the best public transportation route in my city, or where do I recycle my e-waste. The topic also has a feeling of urgency (if not at times alarmist) which helps to quicky disseminate it around the web.
Most importantly the movement is made up by passionate communities, who are often early adopters, technologically and socially speaking. It’s not a coincidence that one of the most eco states is also home to Silicon Valley.
Will Web Kill SportsCenter
Back in the day when ESPN launched Sports Center, it put an end to the value proposition of the sports page — wire-service box scores and game recaps. The highlights game was over, for both newspapers and the three-minute sports-guy recap at the end of the local nightly news.
A few decades later when most of the SportsCenter presenters are celebrities in their own right, there are signs the Internet may be replacing SportsCenter as the go-to guy for immediate highlights gratification. Right now, ESPN is at the height of its power, charging premium fees from cable operators for the right to carry the channel. But for how much longer?
4 bits from Web 2.0 Expo
There is nothing I can say about the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco that hasn’t already been said before. And if you didn’t read it, then you perhaps watched it live. Here are some news snippets that you might be worth your time, and need further exploration.
- Mixercast is a new service allows you to remix your photos and videos and present them as a hybrid show - that is more than a pure slide show and less than a full blown video. Inspired by the photocasting concept popularized by Apple, it is a lush, rich and attractive service that allows you to mix-and-match photos and videos on your desktop with those on popular web services such as Flickr and YouTube. Trust me - they will make your photos and videos look like a million bucks. A full review when the Web 2.0 Expo madness ends.
- Tomorrow you will get to hear about Gaia Online, which is one of the fastest growing teen hangouts on the web. It is not for readers of this blog, but it has more stickiness than MySpace and is growing at a break neck speed. Its like Second Life, but with many millions of users who are living in this metaverse.
- Tellme is going to offer search via text, voice and data on your mobile phones, starting tomorrow.
- SoonR is now able to offer access to your Mac and PC via the browser on Nokia’s S60 version 3 devices starting tomorrow.
- For everything else, read Steve Rubel’s post.
Is Web 2.0 a time sink?
As web workers, most of us are steeped in Web 2.0 throughout our working day (never mind that we can’t agree on what “Web 2.0″ means). Many of us have embraced online applications from Google, Yahoo, and elsewhere to do the bulk of our work, and we rely on a mishmash of social media sites to stay in touch with our peers and build our extended networks. But this connectivity comes at a cost: the internet is filled with bright, shiny distractions. Though we think of the web as a massive productivity enhancer, for some people it’s also a great time sink. Continue Reading