Q 8 Blog Reviews » industry

Is Apple Booting iAd’s Competition from the iPhone?

cgseo — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:15:23 +0000

At the most recent Apple keynote , Steve Jobs announced Apple's upcoming advertising platform called iAd . Included as a part of the OS 4.0 update, the mobile operating system upgrade due out for iPhone this summer and iPad later this fall, the iAd system aims, in its very Apple-ly way, to make mobile advertisements "delightful," meaning ads worth clicking on, engaging with and viewing. What Jobs didn't mention, though, is how Apple plans to give iAd its head start: by kicking out the competing analytics and advertising platforms now thriving in nearly every iPhone app today. Or so it seems. Sponsor Developer Reports App Store Rejection Due to Analytics Inclusion Last week, technology news blog VentureBeat caught wind of a story where Apple had rejected an iPhone application because it, according to the email sent to the developer, "is not appropriate for applications to gather user analytics." Not appropriate, you may ask? Since when? Apparently since Apple released their updated iPhone Developer Agreement. Alongside the SDK 4 beta , made available shortly after the announcement in early April, the developer contract was updated, too. Specifically, the clause in question, section 3.3.9, reads, in part (more here ): Notwithstanding anything else in this Agreement, Device Data may not be provided or disclosed to a third party without Apple's prior written consent. Accordingly, the use of third party software in Your Application to collect and send Device Data to a third party for processing or analysis is expressly prohibited. To date, the changes detailed in this clause have been overshadowed by the one preceding it - in Section 3.3.1, Apple banned the use of cross-compiler tools for building iPhone applications, like the one Adobe was just about to ship , for example. But in the long run, it's Section 3.3.9 that may have more impact on the industry as a whole. "FEAR" You may have not heard too much about this change because no one actually knows what's going on thanks to Apple's par-for-the-course policy of refusing to clarify its meaning. Plus, the companies who may be the most heavily affected by an analytics ban - services like Flurry , MediaLets , Motally , Localytics , and SimpleGeo , to name a few - don't want to talk about it. On record that is. But after a dozen or so phone calls and emails, we're starting to see a picture forming and it can be summed up in one word: FEAR . "Nobody wants to be the canary in the coal mine," one source told us, referring to the radio silence we're getting from these companies when you would have otherwise expected to hear outcry, or perhaps even anti-competitive claims. Some companies, off-record, say they are afraid to complain . If they do, they could be the next to be banned. Another source reported that a number of their company's clients weren't submitting updates to the iTunes Application Store because they were worried that the updates, with the analytics included of course, would be rejected. Instead, the clients are leaving their older applications in place since it doesn't appear that Apple is going back through all the current apps and booting out those that already include analytics within them. "Maybe the older apps are grandfathered in?" they wondered aloud. The fact that no one knows, not even the big name, big box retailer that sits at the top of the latter's client list, is a testament to how Apple likes to do business. Here's the agreement, read it, sign it...and that's the extent of the communication. As to those who did manage to get someone from Apple to talk about it? The answer was simply: "read the agreement." But if Apple holds true to what's written there, it sounds like it could spell doom for mobile analytics and ad firms, especially the small-time players beloved by independent developers. iAd, Anti-Competitive? What no one will say - again, on record, that is - is that the changes have a whiff of anti-competitive behavior to them. The issue at hand: Apple is preparing to launch iAd, an advertising platform based on the newly-acquired Quattro Wireless technology, a company that was the second choice for Apple after the Admob deal fell through. "We tried to buy AdMob, but Google snatched them up because they didn't want us to have them," Steve Jobs said during the April keynote. "So we bought another smaller company, Quattro. But we're babes in the woods." But these "babes" are toting means guns, some say. A couple companies see the language in section 3.3.9 as a direct shot at AdMob in the same way that the changes in 3.3.1 were a shot at Adobe. That is, instead of allowing Google to get its mobile advertisements onto the iPhone, Apple can keep them out via the new analytics/ad ban. Whether or not that's the case is certainly up for debate. But considering that the Google/AdMob deal is still being researched by U.S. antitrust enforcers, regulators aware of the issue. Word has it that Google even pointed it out to the FTC, just in case. Continue Reading: Next page, "A Second Opinion" A Second Opinion: Privacy Concerns Others, however, say these changes aren't really about analytics, ads and anti-competitive behavior as much as they are about privacy concerns. In speaking with Alan Chapell, chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association Privacy Committee and whose firm advises companies on privacy and data strategy, the changes to Apple's agreement have to do more with consumer privacy than anything else. With language that refers to "geo-location" and targeted advertising, a good bit of Section 3.3.9 is about how location-based applications should behave. With the rise of location-based services especially and location-based social tools like Loopt, Foursquare, Gowalla, and others, privacy is at the forefront of everyone's minds these days. ( Including ours ). There are no standards for location based data yet, Chapell explains. No rules about how such data should be used, retained, shared and so on. In addition, Apple is under heavy pressure from regulators to protect the privacy of its customers. And if the third-party analytics providers do something which comprises that privacy, it will be Apple that gets in trouble. "This debate is about privacy and innovation," Chapell notes, "and finding a balance between the two." Unfortunately, even if Apple chooses never to enforce the new rules, explains Chapell, the changes will have an indirect impact on innovation in this area. The next round of ad networks, analytics providers and other in-app data-sharing tools will be less likely to be funded. Not Just Funding at Risk... These changes won't just affect the funding of services like those noted above, though, they could affect how services are developed for the iPhone. Take for example, Xtify , a location-triggered geo-messaging system now available for Android ( previous coverage ). The company's VP of Business Development, Joshua Schmiffman, says they're still figuring out what this all means, but they will have some location-triggered functionality for the iPhone. "We are going to try," he says, "but it may not be exactly 'real time.'" That is, if it ever comes to the iPhone at all. Backup Plans: 1st-Party Analytics, "Trust in Apple" As for Localytics , a small-time analytics provider for mobile apps, the decision is to focus more on the company's soon-to-launch enterprise solution. The upcoming offering will allow application publishers to directly collect and process app analytics data, without going through a 3rd party. Ashish Chordia, CEO and Founder of AppDiscover , an iPhone application development and analytics company, is also generally unconcerned with the changes. "While the wording of the terms in section 3.3.9 is quite strict, Apple will not enforce this specific term," he writes in an email. "Enforcing this term would mean rejecting a huge number of apps. Moreover these analytic services are very important for a healthy market for free / ad-supported apps, so that there can be transparency behind the CPM / CPA pricing." On a call, he tells us that several of the company's analytics-enabled apps have made it into the App Store since the agreement was released. Essentially, Cordia believes that Apple will selectively enforce this restriction, but it won't affect applications like his. "Looking Forward to More Insights" Outside of public statements like those received from Flurry and Motally (the latter: "We've reached out to Apple for clarification and are looking forward for more insights into the policy."), the backchannel whispers are that this whole iAd thing is worrisome right now, but not deadly...at least, not yet. But when reading through the initial hands-on reviews of iAd, like the recent one from ad agency Hill Holiday which spoke of iAd's impressive granularity, there are concerns that Apple wants to now dominate where the third-party analytics providers once did. In the meantime, you can count us among those who are also "looking forward to more insights" from Apple. But we're not holding our breath. Image credits: Toy Story iAd, Hill Holiday ; Steve Jobs, gdgt Discuss

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Is Apple Booting iAd's Competition from the iPhone?

WeoGeo: How the Cloud Makes New Markets Possible

cgseo — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 23:39:17 +0000

Cloud computing is affecting the evolution of content management systems and the manners in which data becomes a service. Business services are evolving as cloud computing forces people to think more about how information is organized and shared. At the consumer level, Apple iTunes will be replaced by cloud computing services, often referred to as online music storage lockers. People have become accustomed to using iTunes but as people get access to more data, they will find new ways to organize information. And the kids will realize how the information can be shared. Sponsor At the business level, cloud computing is having a profound effect in a number of markets. In the mapping world it's leading to new forms of content management systems that use data for specific niche purposes. Services like WeoGeo offer new forms of geo-spatial, content management systems and marketplaces that offer deep repositories of data, like a giant map case in the sky. It's in some ways like a content management system and marketplace for map makers, an age old craft now in a different dimension. Foe example, WeoGeo offers a map library and a marketplace , designed specifically for surveyors, engineers, architects, geoscientists, and cartographers. It offers both the library and the marketplace as data services, petabytes of data stored in the cloud. All of its services are available via RESTful web services. Is that a big deal? We kind of think so. Web oriented architectures require the data to be browser compatible. With RESTful, companies can create new kinds of mashups baked into a new generation of content management systems that correlate to specific communities. That's the evolution taking place. Applications that can share data through API's that provide the capability to organize new sets of data and shared in a variety of manners. The service is in contrast to what Google and Microsoft offer. Both of these companies use map data to enhance their services. They serve as ways to lock in data that they use for search and advertising. SimpleGeo is a similar service to WeoGeo but it uses geodata to makes applications more location aware. ESRI represents the old guard of the industry and is the market leader in mapping software. It's a proprietary platform. But the real future for the mapping world is in the cloud. It serves as a place that data can be served and built upon. It's also the place where markets will develop. It's like a data fabric that the map makers use to sell their works. It's a community made of developers. And that's how communities evolve. They trade between themselves, thus creating the demand. It's similar to how the publishing market evolved several hundred years ago. Book makers traded books. As more books were published, the market grew. We are in the same place with data as a service. Google and Microsoft will not and can not control the entire market. The foundation for geo market services will strengthen as its developer/small business community evolves. Its these small businesses that represent the future. Discuss

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WeoGeo: How the Cloud Makes New Markets Possible

Channeling Murdoch: Choices for Content Payments on the iPad

cgseo — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 01:50:00 +0000

With the launch of the iPad, the value of content is being reconsidered once again. It's clear that free (the way of Google) isn't the goal of the publishing industry. As a result, many new iPad owners are faced with the question of whether the book or magazine they own or consume should be purchased again on the iPad. Similarly, developers are faced with a set of decision on how to appropriately extract payment from consumers. In this post, we'll take a look at the solution offered by Apple and a host of solutions that exist on the web that are available to the iPad as applications or web sites that charge for views. Sponsor To App, or not to App, That is a Question For content providers that have websites, or an existing relationship with Amazon, the question of whether to push content to Apple's book store, or to build an app is more complicated than first meets the eye. On one hand, getting paid through multiple channels makes a ton of sense. Apple, being very wise is working to find balance in the closed and open ecosystem. Its breakthrough product, iPad, supports web sites, applications like Kindle, and its own book store simultaneously. On the other hand, it can be a pain to track customer relationships and inventory across multiple channels. If your content is recurring (weekly, monthly), it is even more complicated. And, if you already have subscribers on your web site behind a paywall, it can be even more challenging to rationalize how to merge these customer populations and price points. In a way, we're all learning together and competition across channels is going to make it harder in the short term to figure out the right mix. Distribution Matters Apple's StoreKIt Framework is the tookit for developers to enable payments in iPhone and iPad applications. Apple has evolved its own rules and technology in the last several years to do this, and in 3.0 released last summer offered the Store Kit API. When first launched, only paid apps were able to offer recurring payments through Store Kit. However, in one of the more recent updates offered by Apple, the company changed the terms of Store Kit to allow developers to set the price of their application for "Free" and then to offer updates or subscriptions as additional payments. In the release of iPad this week, we saw veterans of the industry release amazing reader applications , but as reported in The Huffington Post , price does matter, and parity across offerings is still a question to be answered. Amazon offers its books and other goods via the iPhone in its Kindle for iPhone applicaiton, in this free application, Amazon is the back-end for payment and Apple is the distributor of the application. Amazon, like Apple has a direct relationship with publishers to offer their inventory in its stores. In recent weeks, it has been reported that intense negotiations have been underway between the publishers and Amazon on pricing and margin. As reported by AP , Amazon has seemingly conceded a new level of pricing control to publishers. Amazon and Apple are setting the pace for the future of computing. Both are engaged with content providers to work out all the kinks of pricing in this new world. We wonder if there is a way that both can win, as certainly they are both extremely well positioned and successful in payments, computing, and content distribution. Getting Paid is Hard - However Recurring Billing is a Real Pain In contrast to these end-to-end platforms for distribution, we took a look at companies that focus on the process of payment itself as offered as a platform to content and application developers. Aria Systems announced a new release of its PCI compliant platform to support iPad today. The company's core vision is to "Simplify Your Billing". To do that, the company is making a bet that content providers will want to extend their relationships with consumers via the iPad and integrate their web applications by announcing a future integration with Safari. Aria Systems brings a plug-and-play solution to integrating with back-end systems that a company may be running, including QuickBooks and SalesForce.com. It also specializes in dealing with the process of recurring billing transactions, which can be a difficult thing to work out in the context of subscription revenue recognition. The platform is described as being PCI complicant, which can be a huge benefit for content and application owners that don't want to take on the burden and liability of all of the controls of handling credit cards and personal privacy. Chargify is another software-as-a-service application that suggests its core value being "Build Your Business, Not Your Billing System". We think this is the value-add that both Chargify and Aria bring to companies that want to offer recurring payments. Many do not have the time to also become experts in the hard word of accounting and compliance. The Chargify solution is offered as a set of APIs to integrate into an existing application and offers an iPhone application to peer into the payments processes in play. Here's a quick view of how it works. Content Distribution Enters Into a New Chapter We are left wondering whether Apple or Amazon will extend their reach further beyond their current distribution. Will they grow their payment solutions to become the center of gravity for all payments for content on the web? Or, will solutions like Aria Systems and Chargify get closer to the distribution channel and offer app developers and content owners they can have a deeper relationship to consumers when they remove distribution as the driver of payments? We expect that in the next years content providers will require the best of both worlds will require both great distribution and simple billing. Perhaps we're asking the wrong question by focusing on what Rupert Murdoch is doing. Maybe we should ask what Wolverine would do. After all, content is king. Are you looking at recurring payments for your content or application? In 2010, is it possible to choose a single solution? Discuss

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Channeling Murdoch: Choices for Content Payments on the iPad

Rulers of the Cloud: A Multi-Tenant Semantic Cloud is Forming & EMC Knows that Data Matters

cgseo — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:21:00 +0000

EMC is a large company focused on high performance storage for enterprises. It's offerings are closely aligned with the idea of extending infrastructure from virtualization to private cloud infrastructure. The company wants to help IT data provisioning services are as easy as Amazon and as secure as Fort Knox. To get a handle of where enterprise data storage meets the web, we looked for inspiration from architects of the web and Internet, including web pioneer Sir Tim Berner-Lee and Vint Cerf . We take a look at EMC as positioned as the closet, physically, to the core assets of the enterprise. Sponsor In this report, we also spoke with Ted Newman, CTO of the Cloud Infrastructure Group of EMC Consulting, which is part of EMC Global Services to find out what is really happening in the enterprise sales and delivery engines. We mashed his thoughts up with some big-thinkers in the core of computing to get perspective on the company's future as a map to enterprise information assets. Where Does Data Live? EMC's byline is " Where Information Lives ", and by being a leading provider of storage solutions, this claim is literal indeed. Here, we see that data does have a home. In this case, in an enclosure, in a data center. This YouTube video shares a 2009 demonstration of EMC's Symmetrix V-Max. This unit, built in partnership with Intel, can be configured with up to two petabytes of storage and one terrabyte of cache. Based on our interview Newman from the company and its focus on creating and extending private clouds, we think the EMC is recognizing the vast power of extending the enterprise out and providing services that compete with with the ease and speed of Amazon Web Services, but also provide enterprise class controls and performance. Where Does Data Dance? Tim Berners Lee sheds some light in this interview about the future of the web and its data. Question : "Is your vision of the Semantic Web one in which data is freely available, or are there access rights attached to it?" Answer : "A lot of information is already public, so one of the simple things to do in building the new Web of data is to start with that information. And recently, I've been working with both the U.K. government and the U.S. government in trying not only to get more information on the Web, but also to make it linked data. But it's also very important that systems are aware of the social aspects of data. And it's not just access control, because an authorized user can still use the right data for the wrong purpose. So we need to focus on what are the purposes for accessing different kinds of data, and for that we've been looking at accountable systems. Accountable systems are aware of the appropriate use of data, and they allow you to make sure that certain kinds of information that you are comfortable sharing with people in a social context, for example, are not able to be accessed and considered by people looking to hire you. For example, I have a GPS trail that I took on vacation. Certainly, I want to give it to my friends and my family, but I don't necessarily wish to license people I don't know who are curious about me and my work and let them see where I've been. Companies may want to do the same thing. They might say, "We're going to give you access to certain product information because you're part of our supply chain and you can use it to fine-tune your manufacturing schedule to meet our demand. However, we do not license you to use it to give to our competition to modify their pricing." This vision is where there is opportunity, accountable means controls. Shared, means cloud. Perhaps a new term in the making: Accountable clouds. Does Your Cloud Compile? Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist posted to the Google Research blog, Cloud Computing and the Internet that further expands on vocabulary management and cloud computing. We see a definition of cloud computing emerging here that ties it to data portability and capability, a defining moment in the definition of semantic web. "Interestingly, my colleague, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has been pursuing ideas that may inform the so-called "inter-cloud" problem. His idea of data linking may prove to be a part of the vocabulary needed to interconnect computing clouds. The semantics of data and of the actions one can take on the data, and the vocabulary in which these actions are expressed appear to me to constitute the beginning of an inter-cloud computing language. This seems to me to be an extremely open field in which creative minds everywhere can be free to contribute ideas and to experiment with new concepts. It is a new layer in the Internet architecture and, like the many layers that have been invented before, it is an open opportunity to add functionality to an increasingly global network." All of the sudden, the semantic web seems required to realize the vision of the cloud. And, the great thing about it is that the cloud layer being a first example of the semantic web shows us we can start it in information technology's own backyard. EMC's Opportunity The enterprise of the future needs to share nicely, store petabytes at-will, and be available on demand. Also, to the degree that organizations run sensitive or personalized enterprise software, the platforms it runs on and interacts with will need to demonstrate the controls and permissions similar to those today inside the enterprise. This will be a key factor in whether the enterprise systems can gracefully consume cloud computing - or what they can adopt it for. This is the space open for EMC to provide hardware solutions coupled with software to manage the resources of the cloud, including storage, computing, and network. This is also the area of much focus - from monitoring to provisioning. And a winner is not going to be determined overnight. A roundup of open questions for the company and the enterprise information industry: VMware and Not - Can EMC win soley with ties to VMware, if open source hypervisors take significant market share, can and will the company be well positioned in these architectures? Oracle with Sun - Will Oracle's move into hardware, cloud, and storage have an impact on the companies positioning? S3 Servers in the Enterprise - We may have made this up. It seems clear that S3 and other Amazon Web Services will become the core fabric for IT adopting the cloud. It only makes sense to do the same with abstracting storage in the enterprise. We believe in the power of the cloud to creep in, and we want to see how big storage providers react to this new logical competitor. A key here for EMC and the rest of the IT industry is that Amazon sells storage with no consulting involved, or waiting period. At EMC, global services was responsible for 37% of EMC's total revenue in 2009 and is a important part of servicing customers. We wonder, should EMC offer an "S3" for the enterprise that plugs into Ionix and other EMC offerings? Open Protocols Inside, APIs Outside? - We asked recently in a discussion with Hitachi Data Systems whether open protocols instead of APIs would be the driver for this industry interoperability. Amazon, is clearly an API, where things more in the core of storage tier are protocols, worked on in tandem by many and influenced by those who matter. Helping IT Respond to Now - In a way, EMC and cloud computing meet in the IT budgeting process. We think that providing "always available" and "highly available" will meet, "low latency" and "DR" in a real way in future Amazon vs. internal discussions. What we mean, is that Amazon providing "scale as you go" is perfect disruption for the IT department. Iinfrastructure scales, IT budgets don't. This can be a big headache for IT trying to predict the future and is an opportunity for EMC to provide a better solution for enterprise capacity management. Yes, that means paying with a credit card - at least sometimes. Intel / Cisco as partners - New types of network management and cloud services are evolving in the chipset and network layer. We see the companies maturity in how it has global partnerships with these companies to help the the channel and drive solutions. At the same time, this centuries IT industry is more of a mosh-pit than a sing-a-long, and it seems like it is going to get very cozy in the future in the area of network and cloud management. This EMC rant on YouTube is a funny take on where the company is positioned. If EMC plays it's cards right, enterprises will choose its tools to "control the shape" of the data and systems in the data center. And, if it evolves quickly enough, the same IT manages will have solutions that keep all of the companies assets, including public cloud offerings, under one umbrella. Is your enterprise moving your data out into the cloud? Or is the cloud moving into your company's data? Photo credit: paul_clarke Discuss

ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 27 March 2010

cgseo — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 18:00:00 +0000

There are six different events on the calendar this week that are offering you, yes you dear ReadWriteWeb reader, a discount. Social media, music, cloud - six different conferences giving you another enticing reason to get up from behind your desk and do some real-world learning and networking. How do you like your events calendar? As a world map ? As an iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file? You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us . Sponsor March 29, 2010: Portland, Oregon Social Fresh Portland The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day, you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Intel, Ford, Comcast, Nike and many more, as well as keynote Peter Shankman. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off. April 2010 Positioning Roundtable During this weekly 60-minute online session, entrepreneurs are invited to pitch Sramana Mitra - entrepreneur, strategy consultant, Forbes columnist and author of Entrepreneur Journeys - their business ideas in a three-minute presentation. She will review the material in real time and provide feedback on each pitch, as well as address specific positioning questions from the entrepreneur. Afterwards, she will take questions about positioning from other participants. Sessions is open to 1,000 people to attend, but only the first five who sign up to pitch Sramana will have the opportunity to discuss their businesses. Register for roundtables on April 1 , 8 , 15 , 22 and 29 . 4 April 2010: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania ConnectNow TEDx CMU is an independently organized TEDx event that will be held on April 4th, 2010 at Carnegie Mellon University and will feature a full day of talks by prominent speakers as well as recorded videos from past TEDTalks. Confirmed speakers include Jonathan Fields (author, blogger and entrepreneur), Stacey Monk (founder of Epic Change, a startup nonprofit), Chase Jarvis (photographer, director and social artist) and Nathan Martin (CEO of Deeplocal, an innovation studio in Pittsburgh). The theme of the event is "Fearless", and we are inviting speakers from cross-disciplinary backgrounds to talk about their experiences, and tell us a little about what inspires them to be fearless in the pursuit of goals. We hope to spark discussions and foster connections between participants, encouraging aspiring individuals to follow their dreams and make a difference. The event is free to attend, and the application deadline is March 21, 2010. For more information about the event, visit tedxcmu.com or email info@tedxcmu.com. You can also find TEDx CMU on Facebook or follow us on Twitter . 7 – 9 April 2010: Sydney, Australia ConnectNow ConnectNow brings together international specialists and thought leaders in social media, emerging technologies and their intersection with business. Learn how the realtime web, location based services, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing and personalised services are changing marketing and communications. Understand the importance of trust in relationship marketing and what is "social currency". For more info email info@connectnow.net.au . 13 – 15 April 2010: Dallas, Texas PubCon South PubCon , the premier search and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. PubCon South will include cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the world's top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register here . 16 April 2010: Mountain View, California Under the Radar: Cloud Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference, featuring a hand-picked selection of the world's most innovative cloud startups among 350 top tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com . 16 – 17 April 2010: Royal Oak, Michigan FutureMidwest FutureMidwest is the region's largest technology and knowledge conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 - the Module Midwest Digital Conference and TechNow. Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here . 17 April 2010: New York City Seven on Seven Seven on Seven will pair seven leading artists with seven game-changing technologists in teams of two, and challenge them to develop something new - be it an application, social media, artwork, product, or whatever they imagine - over the course of a single day. The seven teams will unveil their ideas at a one-day event at the New Museum on April 17. Seven on Seven Participants include, on the technology side, Ayah Bdeir (artist and programmer), Jeff Hammerbacher (Accel Ventures/ Facebook), David Karp (founder of Tumblr), Andrew Kortina (of Bitly/ Venmo), Hilary Mason (of betaworks), Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress), and Joshua Schachter (currently at Google, formerly at Yahoo, and founder of delicious), and on the art side, Tauba Auerbach, Cao Fei, Aaron Koblin, Monica Narula, Marc Andre Robinson, Evan Roth and Ryan Trecartin. Conference attendance includes a half-day session where the seven teams will unveil their ideas, followed by a cocktail reception in the New Museum Skyroom. Find registration information here . April 19, 2010: St. Louis Missouri Social Fresh St. Louis The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Ford, Best Buy, Scottrade, Hardees, CMT and many more. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off. 19 – 21 April 2010: San Francisco, California DrupalCon DrupalCon is the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal experts. Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and management. 26 April 2010: San Francisco, California Future of Money and Technology Summit The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O'Dell, formerly of ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and many more. Use discount code "rww" to get 10% off registration . 7 May 2010: Mountain View, California ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 Hurry, register now and save $100. Early bird pricing ends March 31! The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends - both the technology and the emerging business applications. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of Mobile with the brightest in the industry, your peers! As in our last Summit, The Real-Time Web, the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit is an unconference. An unconference is a participant driven conference where the agenda is created on the day, in real-time and discussions are lead by conference participants. Read about the history of unconferences . We will have two main tracks at this Summit - Development and Business - so the Summit will be of interest to managers, marketers, developers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders alike. Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks. Geo-location services - what can you do using location as a platform ? Commerce & Marketing - as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel? Content, Publishing & Recommendations - the technologies and best practices. Mobile Social Networking - how to tap into communities on mobile devices. Internet of Things - the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data. Augmented Reality - the technology and business applications of AR. Native App vs. Browser Based - Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian. Click here to register now , or to become a sponsor , or to help shape the conference . 11 May 2010: San Francisco, California FinovateSpring FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate's signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of unique value into a single day. Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech entrepreneurs. Early bird registration rates are available. May 17 2010: San Francisco, California SF MusicTech Summit The SF MusicTech Summit will bring together 700-plus visionaries in the music/technology space - the best and brightest entrepreneurs, developers, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music, business and technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive-to-dealmaking environment. Enter the discount code "rww" to get 10% off . 25 – 27 May 2010: Denver, Colorado Glue Glue is the only conference devoted solely to exploring the problem-sets facing architects, developers and IT professionals in a "post-cloud" world. Glue focuses on the APIs and protocols (Twitter, Facebook, Websockets, PubSubHubBub, XMPP), formats and standards (RDF/Linked Data, JSON, Microformats, HTML5), platforms and providers (Amazon, Rackspace, Google App Engine, Salesforce.com, Eucalyptus), Identity Protocols (OAuth/WRAP, SAML, OpenID, SPML) emerging NoSQL data models (Cassandra, CouchDB, MongoDB, Riak, HBase), and other mechanisms that are building the post-cloud world. ReadWriteCloud will be blogging live from Gluecon and CloudCamp, and ReadWriteWeb's Alex Williams will be moderating the "Managing Complexity in the Cloud" session. Please join us May 25-27 in Denver, Colorado. ReadWriteWeb readers can receive 10% off of registration by using the code "RWW12". 27 – 28 May 2010: Beijing, China Global Mobile Internet Conference The Global Mobile Internet Conference is designed specifically for entrepreneurs, executives and influencers to understand and capitalize on the growing opportunities in mobile internet. Though focused on opportunities in Asia, much of the conference dialogue is intended to compare and trade best practices across borders, especially between the East and West. Around 1000 industry leaders from Asia, Europe and North America are expected to attend. The conference will be in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. 28 May 2010: Beijing, China Global Mobile Internet Conference - Innovation Show & Startup Competition The Global Mobile Internet Conference Innovation Show intends to be a launch pad for innovative mobile internet startups from around the world. Innovation Show finalists will have the opportunity to present their company to an expected 1,000 investors, industry leaders, and press. Finalists will be judged by and receive feedback from a team of respected venture capitalists and angel investors. The judges will choose one company as the GMIC Innovation Show Winner. Startups must apply by April 4. 15 – 16 June 2010: New York City Corporate Social Media Summit The Corporate Social Media Summit is a two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring: Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully 20-plus corporate speakers (including PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald's, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson), Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social media in your business A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth, practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding corporate use of social media Save $400 if you quote RWW400 when booking. Book here . 29 – 30 June 2010: London Cloud Computing World Forum The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry. Show highlights include: Co-located with CloudCamp London Co-located with Green IT conference Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre Free-to-attend evening awards presentation Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated cloud computing and SaaS into their working practices Learn from the key players offering cloud and SaaS services Evening networking party for all attendees 5 October 2010: New York City FinovateFall FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology from established leaders and hot young companies. The Fall event is the original and largest Finovate and features a single day packed with our special blend of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) and intimate networking time with top executives from the innovative demoing companies. FinovateFall is a unique chance to see the future of finance and banking before your competition and find the edge you need in today's market. Early bird registration rates are available. Download this entire events calendar in iCal format. Discuss

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ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 27 March 2010

Why We Need To Keep Debate Alive In A Customized, Personalized World

cgseo — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:48:00 +0000

Maybe we're getting to be a bit of a broken record on this point, but a blog post this morning by Robert Scoble on how malleable social graphs could change the direction of location based services reminded us of the fine line we think we're all walking. Malleable social graphs, much like recommendation engines and customized searches, sound like the wave of the future, but we fear that they will, if improperly used, ensure that we never hear a disagreeable opinion or see something outside of our day-to-day ever again. Sponsor Scoble's Argument: LBS Dead In The Water Without Innovation For much of Scoble's post , we heartily agree: We are in the very early days of LBS and Facebook could easily squash services like Gowalla and Foursquare if done right. His suggestion for these services is to use what he calls "malleable social graphs", that is, a set of connections that change in response to real-world conditions. Some of his suggestions and criticisms are right on point, such as the opportunity Gowalla has to point someone checking in at a car wash to anything but a lamp store. Checking into the TV show "24" and chatting with other fans sounds like a great idea that Miso is on top of already , just as SuperGlued has taken center stage for aligning like-minded folks around live music events. ...And Then It All Goes Wrong It's when Scoble gets to suggesting that, because he identified himself as a Democrat on Facebook, he shouldn't be shown any "Republican crap" in his news feed, that our spidey-sense starts to tingle. Just as we argued when we found that Google was customizing one in five searches, all of this recommending, customizing and filtering, can put us into an idea echo chamber of sorts, where we only come across safe and previously approved, by our actions, opinions. But a part of what we like so much about Facebook is getting into debates with friends we might never get into in "real life". Go ahead and post a video of the Tea Baggers on your profile, say how absurd you think it is or how much you support it, and see what unexpected discussion ensues. It may not end up being pretty, but maybe you'll learn something - if everyone can keep it polite enough to actually exchange ideas and information. Unless we truly believe that one side is always right and another always wrong (a ridiculous proposition) then filtering out any content we may not agree with is sure to create even more people who believe they are absolutely right. After all, everything they read on the Internet tells them so. ...Or Does It? Then again, when Scoble gets to talking about tastes and reviews, such as his refined taste for sushi versus those who like "fried crap [he] can't even pronounce", it starts to make sense again. Maybe it's because the only thing at stake here is missing out on a good meal. Here's what happens: Yuzu is a place that is awesome for advanced sushi lovers. I've eaten sushi all over the world in places like Tokyo, Yokohama, New York, London, and other places. I love advanced sushi. I look for restaurants who do sushi well. But most people aren't like me. Most people don't even like sushi. So, if they get dragged to a place like this they try to order "Americanized" sushi like, um, California rolls. Or fried crap I can't even pronounce. That is NOT sushi. Anyway, these people, er, newbies, get to Yuzu and find that all the other "non-sushi" stuff sucks. So they rate it low. Me? I could care less about all that other non-sushi stuff when I am looking for a sushi restaurant, which is why I rate this place five stars. Now, Yelp does NOT have a malleable social graph. We can't filter out all the "sushi newbies" who don't like sushi anyway. Malleable social graphs, recommendation engines, customized searches and the like all have great uses and can be immensely powerful tools. We can find out about all sorts of things we might have missed because they would have otherwise been lost in the overwhelming stream of information. Using these sorts of tools in conjunction with LBS is where the industry needs to go, as Scoble argues, to stay afloat. But once you return back to the ideological realm again, though, as with his argument about movie reviews, we feel that the stance gets a bit tenuous. Our fear, as we discussed when looking at recommendation engine My6Sense , is that people need to step outside these filters otherwise they will never see the unexpected and have their thoughts challenged. And of course, this is not a black and white debate . It isn't between either having content recommended or having the entirety of the Internet's data blasted at you, full force. There are gradations and in-betweens, and maybe, sometimes, you just want to know what all of your friends are talking about. But even then, do you only want to know what your friends are talking about that you can be sure you agree with? Different opinions, ideas, and their vigorous debate is essential to a free and developing society. On this point, we implore Facebook, Google, My6Sense, Twitter and everyone else - no matter how much our staunch Republican friends may annoy us, please don't silence them. We'll never get anywhere if you do. One Last Thing With all of that being said, we have to fess up to one, minor detail. Where did we find Scoble's article? Was it in the unfiltered chaos that contains all of the different opinions of the world? Not at all. It was, in fact, the third story down in our Twitter Times , a website that creates a custom, newspaper-style page, specifically personalized by looking at all of the links being tweeted and retweeted by all of the people you follow on Twitter. So much for personalization killing debate, eh? Discuss

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Why We Need To Keep Debate Alive In A Customized, Personalized World

Test Shows: iPhone Touchscreen Still the Best

cgseo — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:48:02 +0000

If the future is all about touchscreen interfaces, then performance of the screen in registering where it's been touched is pretty important. International design firm Moto ran a robotic finger test on 6 leading touchscreen smart phones to see how well they registered a robot's loving touch. Some of the phones did remarkably poorly, like the BlackBerry Storm and the Motorola Droid. The iPhone, Google Nexus One and HTC Droid Eris all did quite well. Check out the video below to see the tests and marvel at the apparent differences between touchscreens and their performances. Sponsor Robot Touchscreen Analysis from MOTO Development Group on Vimeo . As Sadat Karim writes on Neowin , "Hope is not lost though, as Moto Labs concludes that they do expect these problems to be remedied in the future as touchscreens mature and gain further traction in the industry. Commitment and competition will ultimately deliver seamless touch experiences for all consumers over time, since phone makers are continuously perfecting their products." To see touchscreen hardware nerds duke it out over the test, check out the Moto Labs blog . How about you, readers? Have you felt the difference in performance across some of these handsets? See also: User Interfaces Rapidly Adjusting to Information Overload Discuss

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Test Shows: iPhone Touchscreen Still the Best

Twitter Hacker, TechCrunch Document Leaker, Arrested in France

cgseo — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:37:39 +0000

The AFP is reporting that the person who leaked internal business documents from Twitter Inc. to the blog TechCrunch last July is also the same person who compromised the Twitter accounts of Barack Obama and other celebrities last year. A 25-year-old who went by the name "Hacker Croll" has been tracked down and arrested in France by French authorities, with the assistance of the FBI. It's not clear from the report what charges are to be filed. Reportedly, the FBI alerted France to the man's presence in that country almost a year ago, in the same month the internal documents were leaked. Sponsor The media report doesn't make mention of the leaked documents, only the illicit takeover of Obama's account. "Hacker Croll" was identified as the source of the controversial files, though. It seems possible that these two incidents are being improperly connected, but the report filed indicates they were carried out by the same person. We've reached out to both Twitter and TechCrunch for comment. When the documents were sent to TechCrunch, that blog deliberated publicly at length about whether it had a journalistic obligation to publish or suppress them. Founder Michael Arrington in the end decided to work with Twitter executives to identify the most sensitive documents but published other, less sensitive information days later. The resulting blog posts provided a very interesting look into the thinking of one of the most important companies on the Internet, but proved severely damaging to TechCrunch's reputation with people in the industry who considered the decision to publish them an unacceptable betrayal. TechCrunch argued that it was within its legal rights to publish the information, and the law breaking had been done by the person who sent them the files. Now that person is apparently headed to trial. The ethical and perhaps legal implications of TechCrunch's decision will no doubt be discussed again due to this turn of events. The one clear lesson from all this that no one can argue with, though: Don't mess with Twitter or the FBI will hunt you down where ever you may be around the world. Discuss

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Twitter Hacker, TechCrunch Document Leaker, Arrested in France

How Upside Down Bells Could Help Startups Get Seed Funding

cgseo — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:30:00 +0000

Over the last few months, as data has been released by the National Venture Capital Association , we have spoken about how the venture capital industry struggled in 2009 . Though things appear to be returning to normal , 2009 was still a tough year for both VC investments and fund raising. Investor Seth Levine offered his opinion Monday on where he thinks the industry is headed and raised some interesting points on how VC firms will be funded in the future - an issue which could impact the way startups get funding. Sponsor Interestingly enough, according to VentureSource , VCs have been investing more than they have been raising themselves - $14 billion more over the last five years, to be exact. The strange thing is that $9 billion of that difference came in 2009 alone when VCs invested $21 billion but only raised $12 billion for themselves. This is a steep decline from the previous four years which saw fundraising and investment hover around $25 billion. Levine believes that because of the drop in fund raising, VCs will begin settling into a lower level of investment. "Somewhere around $15Bn is the right 'steady state' investment pace for the venture industry as an asset class. At this investment level the return profile of the industry maps to a reasonable expectation of inputs and outputs (the money invested in start-ups as compared to the exit activity)," writes Levine. Additionally, he believes that VC fundraising is headed towards an inverted bell-curve distribution where the majority of the money goes to the "outliers" of the industry. Larger funds with diverse portfolios will continue to attain large funds (like the $750 million we saw go to Battery Ventures earlier this month), while smaller funds which place higher investments in fewer companies will also grab a majority of the VC funds. It's that middle group of funds that will likely suffer, he says. So what does this mean for startups looking for funding? Unfortunately, if this trend continues, lower VC funds means fewer investments, so the pool of money available to startups is shrinking. However, if Levine's idea of the inverted bell-curve holds true, then that means more money will be pumped into the smaller venture funds that provide many early-stage investments. In other words, it could become significantly easier to snag seed funding, but much more difficult to raise those subsequent rounds of funding later on down the road. This, of course, all hinges on Levine's subscription to the idea of the $15 billion "steady state" (an idea he attributes to investor Fred Wilson ) that he thinks the industry is headed to. But if early indicators of 2010 activity show anything, VC investments could be making a rebound from 2009 instead of heading for the "safe zone". It will be interesting to watch the numbers to see which way this scenario plays out, but it seems that either way, seed investments should stay steady or go up in 2010. Discuss

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How Upside Down Bells Could Help Startups Get Seed Funding

ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 20 March 2010

cgseo — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:30:00 +0000

In the next few weeks, the ReadWriteWeb events guide will take you from New York City, to San Francisco, to Portland, Oregon. Along the way you'll find a conference on search engine strategies, a showcase for startups, an in-depth look at the freemium business model, and a day filled with of social media case studies. How do you like your events calendar? As a world map ? As an iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file? You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us . Sponsor 22 – 26 March 2010: New York City Search Engine Strategies New York Conference & Expo Go beyond search at Search Engine Strategies New York . Learn the newest trends, strategic action plans, and technology that industry leaders are employing today. Our experts will trace the natural evolution of search exploring topics such as: digital asset optimization, mobile application development, transition from search to discovery and more.Book your pass today. Enter RWW15 to save 15% off the registration. Sessions include: Digital Asset Optimization Deep Dive Into Analytics Augmented Reality: It's a Brave New World Bringing SEO In-House: The Pros and Cons Advanced B2B Search Marketing Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues 23 March 2010: San Francisco, California S.F. Beta 4.0 After a long winter's hiatus, S.F. Beta is back, for its forth year straight! Join hundreds of founders, investors, developers, and technologists for a lively evening of demos, drinks, conversation, and new connections. Early bird tickets are available, and they're going fast. Register now for discounted admission. As always, we feature startup demos all night. This time around, the theme is Search & Discovery. If you're building the next Google (or the next Google acquisition), we want you here! Email cperry@sfbeta.com for more info. 26 March 2010: San Francisco, California Freemium Summit The first Freemium Summit is a one day event focused on exploring what it takes to succeed under the freemium business model. Across all segments of the media landscape, entrepreneurs and executives are pioneering models that combine a free offering with a premium, paid offering. This hybrid business model is one of the most exciting areas of business model innovation impacting the world of media and the Freemium Summit will explore the most important topics on the minds of leading practitioners. Confirmed Speakers: Toni Schneider, Automattic (WordPress); Matt Brezina, Xobni; Aaron Levie, Box.net; Phil Libin, Evernote; Tom Conrad, Pandora; Drew Houston, Dropbox; Ranjith Kumaran, YouSendIt; Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp; Lance Walley, Chargify; Isaac Hall, Recurly; and Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures. March 29, 2010: Portland, Oregon Social Fresh Portland The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day, you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Intel, Ford, Comcast, Nike and many more, as well as keynote Peter Shankman. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off. 4 April 2010: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania ConnectNow TEDx CMU is an independently organized TEDx event that will be held on April 4th, 2010 at Carnegie Mellon University and will feature a full day of talks by prominent speakers as well as recorded videos from past TEDTalks. Confirmed speakers include Jonathan Fields (author, blogger and entrepreneur), Stacey Monk (founder of Epic Change, a startup nonprofit), Chase Jarvis (photographer, director and social artist) and Nathan Martin (CEO of Deeplocal, an innovation studio in Pittsburgh). The theme of the event is "Fearless", and we are inviting speakers from cross-disciplinary backgrounds to talk about their experiences, and tell us a little about what inspires them to be fearless in the pursuit of goals. We hope to spark discussions and foster connections between participants, encouraging aspiring individuals to follow their dreams and make a difference. The event is free to attend, and the application deadline is March 21, 2010. For more information about the event, visit tedxcmu.com or email info@tedxcmu.com. You can also find TEDx CMU on Facebook or follow us on Twitter . 7 – 9 April 2010: Sydney, Australia ConnectNow ConnectNow brings together international specialists and thought leaders in social media, emerging technologies and their intersection with business. Learn how the realtime web, location based services, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing and personalised services are changing marketing and communications. Understand the importance of trust in relationship marketing and what is "social currency". For more info email info@connectnow.net.au . 13 – 15 April 2010: Dallas, Texas PubCon South PubCon , the premier search and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. PubCon South will include cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the world's top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register here . 16 April 2010: Mountain View, California Under the Radar: Cloud Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference, featuring a hand-picked selection of the world's most innovative cloud startups among 350 top tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com . 16 – 17 April 2010: Royal Oak, Michigan FutureMidwest FutureMidwest is the region's largest technology and knowledge conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 - the Module Midwest Digital Conference and TechNow. Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here . April 19, 2010: St. Louis Missouri Social Fresh St. Louis The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Ford, Best Buy, Scottrade, Hardees, CMT and many more. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off. 19 – 21 April 2010: San Francisco, California DrupalCon DrupalCon is the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal experts. Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and management. 26 April 2010: San Francisco, California Future of Money and Technology Summit The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O'Dell from ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and many more. Use discount code "rww" to get 10% off registration . 7 May 2010: Mountain View, California ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends - both the technology and the emerging business applications. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of Mobile with the brightest in the industry, your peers! As in our last Summit, The Real-Time Web, the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit is an unconference. An unconference is a participant driven conference where the agenda is created on the day, in real-time and discussions are lead by conference participants. Read about the history of unconferences . We will have two main tracks at this Summit - Development and Business - so the Summit will be of interest to managers, marketers, developers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders alike. Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks. Geo-location services - what can you do using location as a platform ? Commerce & Marketing - as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel? Content, Publishing & Recommendations - the technologies and best practices. Mobile Social Networking - how to tap into communities on mobile devices. Internet of Things - the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data. Augmented Reality - the technology and business applications of AR. Native App vs. Browser Based - Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian. Click here to register now , or to become a sponsor , or to help shape the conference . 11 May 2010: San Francisco, California FinovateSpring FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate's signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of unique value into a single day. Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech entrepreneurs. Early bird registration rates are available. May 17 2010: San Francisco, California SF MusicTech Summit The SF MusicTech Summit will bring together 700-plus visionaries in the music/technology space - the best and brightest entrepreneurs, developers, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music, business and technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive-to-dealmaking environment. Enter the discount code "rww" to get 10% off . 25 – 27 May 2010: Denver, Colorado Glue Glue is the only conference devoted solely to exploring the problem-sets facing architects, developers and IT professionals in a "post-cloud" world. Glue focuses on the APIs and protocols (Twitter, Facebook, Websockets, PubSubHubBub, XMPP), formats and standards (RDF/Linked Data, JSON, Microformats, HTML5), platforms and providers (Amazon, Rackspace, Google App Engine, Salesforce.com, Eucalyptus), Identity Protocols (OAuth/WRAP, SAML, OpenID, SPML) emerging NoSQL data models (Cassandra, CouchDB, MongoDB, Riak, HBase), and other mechanisms that are building the post-cloud world. ReadWriteCloud will be blogging live from Gluecon and CloudCamp, and ReadWriteWeb's Alex Williams will be moderating the "Managing Complexity in the Cloud" session. Please join us May 25-27 in Denver, Colorado. ReadWriteWeb readers can receive 10% off of registration by using the code "RWW12". 15 – 16 June 2010: New York City Corporate Social Media Summit The Corporate Social Media Summit is a two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring: Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully 20-plus corporate speakers (including PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald's, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson), Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social media in your business A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth, practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding corporate use of social media Save $400 if you quote RWW400 when booking. Book here . 29 – 30 June 2010: London Cloud Computing World Forum The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry. Show highlights include: Co-located with CloudCamp London Co-located with Green IT conference Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre Free-to-attend evening awards presentation Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated cloud computing and SaaS into their working practices Learn from the key players offering cloud and SaaS services Evening networking party for all attendees 5 October 2010: New York City FinovateFall FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology from established leaders and hot young companies. The Fall event is the original and largest Finovate and features a single day packed with our special blend of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) and intimate networking time with top executives from the innovative demoing companies. FinovateFall is a unique chance to see the future of finance and banking before your competition and find the edge you need in today's market. Early bird registration rates are available. Download this entire events calendar in iCal format. Discuss

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ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 20 March 2010