We've been in a globe-trotting mood for the past two weeks here at the ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, adding new conferences and seminars in London and Australia. As always, you can download the entire event calendar in iCal format or import it into your Google Calendar. You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. We publish it every weekend, as good a time as any to review your conference plans. This events guide is a weekly feature here on ReadWriteWeb. Know of an event taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us . Sponsor 11 January 2010: Nashville, Tennessee Social Fresh Nashville This is the social media conference that comes to you. Social Fresh is a one-day, case-study-rich conference targeted for marketers. Social Fresh Nashville will have 30-plus speakers, including Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer, Gavin Baker of Ruby Tuesday and John Andrews of Collective Bias (formerly of Walmart). ReadWriteWeb readers get a 15% discount with the code "RWW15". 14 January 2010: Palo Alto, California The Founder Showcase The Founder Showcase , by TheFunded.com, is an open startup pitch and networking event that highlights the newest cutting-edge businesses and helps innovators gain traction among the Silicon Valley elite. On Thursday, January 14th, 10 of the most promising early-stage companies, as selected by over 13,000 registered Founders and CEOs on TheFunded.com, will present to an audience of over 300 investors, founders, and members of the press. A panel of experts will critique the pitches, and an open ballot of those in attendance will determine the Founder Showcase Winner. ReadWriteWeb readers receive a 10% discount when registering, just use discount code "RWW". 20 January 2010: London New Digital Revenue Streams Seminar Madgex and Abacus e-Media are hosting a free seminar that will offer advice and case studies from media organisations that have successfully created a direct impact on profit margins. The event is supported by the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) and Haymarket-owned Brand Republic, and will feature speakers, including David Archer, CEO of Scottish Television. The breakfast seminar takes place at the Council Chambers, Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London from 8.30-11 a.m. (registration and breakfast from 8.15 a.m.). To register, book here or email marleen.kinder@madgex.com . 26 January 2010: San Francisco, California Catalyst Conference Vator.tv , a leading platform for entrepreneurs and innovators to broadcast themselves, and provider of news and information through VatorNews, and Girls in Tech, a social network enterprise focused on education and empowerment of influential women in technology, are seeking five women-led startups across any stage to present at the Catalyst Conference on January 26, 2010 at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. To be one of the five, join the Catalyst competition today and win the chance to present. 27 – 28 January 2010: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Enterprise Social 2.0: Rip or ROI? This senior executive event will bring together decision makers from the Top Fortune companies to discuss innovative strategies on how to maximise business performance through social media engagement. The event will include keynote speeches, best-practice presentations as well as interactive discussion sessions. The summit will provide excellent opportunities for you to hear international experts discuss best practices on how to drive business performance using Web 2.0 and social media. Key issues to be discussed include: How to integrate social media programs successfully into business strategies? Building business momentum, visibility and market growth through social media Measuring success and influence using metrics and analytics: what are the tools and techniques Integrating viral marketing and social media into traditional marketing mix Developing and activating audiences using social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs 1 – 5, February 2010: New York City, Berlin, London, San Francisco, Toronto, São Paulo Social Media Week The second annual Social Media Week conference will explore the profound impact that social media has on culture, business communications and society at large. The conference is designed as a series of localized events, which city partners are responsible for organizing. Programs will span a variety of formats, ranging from talks and panel discussions, to interactive workshops, seminars and networking events. Registration will open in January 2010 and the majority of events will be free thanks to the global sponsors and event partners. You can find more information at http://socialmediaweekny.com . 4 February 2010: San Francisco, California Vator Splash Vator.tv , a leading platform for innovators and entrepreneurs to broadcast themselves, is holding its inaugural Vator Splash event on February 4, 2010 at the Cafe du Nord in San Francisco. Catch onstage presenters: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, Smule CEO Jeff Smith, August Capital VC Howard Hartenbaum and Google Ventures VC Bill Maris. Ten promising startups will also get to present onstage. Enter the Vator Splash competition if you want to present. ReadWriteWeb readers get a 25% discount on their tickets using the code VatorReadWriteWeb . 8 February 2010: Tampa, Florida Social Fresh Tampa This is the social media conference that comes to you. Social Fresh is a one-day, case-study-rich conference targeted for marketers. Social Fresh Tampa will have 30+ speakers, including Chris Barger of GM, Maggie Fox of Social Media Group and John Andrews of Collective Bias (formerly of Walmart). ReadWriteWeb readers get a 15% discount with the code "RWW15". 10 February 2010: New York City Online Community Unconference East The Online Community Unconference East is a gathering of online community professionals - managers, developers, business people, tool providers, investors - to discuss experience and strategies in the development and growth of online communities. As we have found with our past events, the best source of information on all of these challenges is other knowledgeable practitioners. The event runs from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Digital Sandbox. 11 February 2010: New York City NYC Venture Capital and Angel Showcase FundingPost is hosting a VC showcase where 20-plus VC funds and angel groups will be exhibiting their firms during a great cocktail party setting. Each fund will have their own table setup for the sole purpose of meeting great new companies. Additionally, there will be an optional pitching workshop from 2:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. The cost to participate in the workshop will be $400. This workshop includes the $125 ticket to the event, and a 1/4 page listing in the Venture Guide Magazine. This event is sponsored by Credit Suisse, and takes place at One Madison Avenue, from 6-9:15 p.m. 18 February 2010: Silicon Valley, California Future of Funding Active limited partners, top rated venture capitalists, and successful entrepreneurs are invited to Silicon Valley on February 18, 2010 to discuss the Future of Funding. The venture capital bubble has burst, and change is coming. Now is the time to have a constructive dialog about the future with all of the stakeholders at the table. Don't miss the opportunity to partake in this exclusive event hosted by TheFunded . Please visit www.futureoffunding.com to see speaker and event details. ReadWriteWeb readers use the code "RWW" and get 10% off. 15 – 16 March 2010: London, England 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum — London The 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum takes place at the Olympia Conference Centre in London. The two-day event features four dedicated conference streams: Social Networking World Forum Enterprise social media Social TV World Forum Mobile Social Networking Forum The event features key speakers from global brands, organizations, social networking publishers and developers, pioneering social media leaders, top agencies, content producers, and more. Full workshop program within exhibition area Evening networking reception Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates Free pass for exhibition only 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 . 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. 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

Read the original:
ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 9 January 2010

FormSpring.com is a data collection and management system with a particular emphasis in online forms, registrations and surveys. And enterprise-level system, FormSpring.com might seem rather dry to anyone but an online retailer or event coordinator. FormSpring.me , on the other hand, has tapped the very essence of what makes the social web so addictive. This new application, a free and social side project, nearly has all the requisite puzzle pieces to go completely viral. It's fun, engaging, and slightly game-like, and it encourages the behaviors users love to indulge. It's only missing one critical element. Sponsor A stable back end. But more about that in a moment. First, let me tell you what makes FormSpring.me so infinitely entertaining. First, the site is user-to-user Q&A . This is the kind of formula that has populated the Web with masses of UGC on sites such as Yahoo! Answers and Wiki Answers . It's also the basic formula behind such highly praised startups as Aardvark , which allows users to ping one another across networks to get answers about specific topics. Q&A between end users is a growing trend on the web, without a doubt. Second, the site allows one user to anonymously ask questions of another user. Anonymity has bred some of the most interesting and varied experiments of the social web. Very often, a lack of links to users' true identities leads to bathroom-wall-of-the-Internet content such as 4chan or YouTube comments. But while anonymity breeds trollism and is actually a dying phenomenon online, having a thin veil between the asker and the answerer of a question can act as a confessional booth in a way, allowing for more frank communication or the posing of some very interesting, controversial questions that might otherwise be considered impolite or risky. Finally, one of the most enduring trends of the social web, from its inception to the present day, is our deep and insatiable love of self-reference . The provocative beginning question for the site is, "Ask me anything," which users then tweet or post to Facebook. Answering questions all about you, your preferences, your past, your thoughts, your wishes and hopes, your regrets, what you eat and where you live - nothing is more intoxicating to the average social media user. From our first LiveJournal entries to mid-2000s MySpace chain surveys to our latest tweets, we clearly love talking about ourselves. The way that FormSpring.me caters to this inherently human attribute is by giving us the impression or illusion that someone, somewhere actually cares about what we think and do enough to ask us and expect an answer. So, when you combine the power of a Q&A site with the magic of an anonymous commenting system and the addictive qualities of navel-gazing with the expectation of being noticed, you basically have on your hands the social web app of the year just waiting to happen. And if it weren't for back end - which is likely built on Ruby on Rails, according to a few sources we've consulted today - FormSpring would have not only a money-making enterprise app but also a blockbuster social app. Although the concept is fascinating, the implementation is transparently shoddy. It seems like a hastily put-together weekend project along the lines of a Startup Weekend or Rails Rumble one-off. In fact, several developers we consulted said the site bears all the marks of a Ruby on Rails product, including rampant database scalability errors . ActiveRecord is a Rails class for accessing databases, and it's been shown in past applications to be unscalable. Concurrency issues mean that a small group of geeks or judges can have a grand time with your app, but the second it catches on with the social media crowd and then - god help you - general Internet users, the app's database is unable to handle that volume of traffic over a period of seconds, and end users start seeing error messages and abandoning ship like so many faithless rats. And since FormSpring.me is in all likelihood a side project from a single staffer or a couple employees (the company blog doesn't even mention the offshoot), it might not get the executive attention for further development or resource allocation. After all, without a revenue model, why would an enterprise-focused company waste time and energy on a social application? Speculation aside, FormSpring.com support tech Ryan Dillman writes, "Eventually, we plan to rewrite the FormSpring.me code from the ground up using the same type of database as sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc., so that we can handle the load. In the meantime, the millions of calls to the database cause frequent issues during peak times." Many parts of Twitter are built on Scala , and Facebook's database abstraction layer was developed in-house. If that kind of userbase - millions upon millions of users accessing the site around the clock - is what FormSpring is preparing for, they're going to need a much more robust solution that's much closer to bare metal than whatever they're currently running. And we do suggest they find one. FormSpring should consider monetizing and quickly scaling such an addictive little application before someone else does it next and better. So, to take the site's "Ask me anything" query and pose it to the site's creators, do you plan to seriously devote resources to create a stunning and addictive social app, or is this experiment destined for the digital dustbin? Ask us anything - or give us your frank opinions - in the comments. Discuss

See original here:
Anonymity, Self-Reference & Q&A: Formspring.me's Winning Combination for the Social Web

As the year winds to a close, it's time to start looking ahead to 2010's conferences and events. As always, you can download the entire event calendar in iCal format or import it into your Google Calendar. You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. This events guide is a weekly feature here on ReadWriteWeb. We publish it every weekend, as good a time as any to review your conference plans. Know of an event taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us . Sponsor 11 January 2010: Nashville, Tennessee Social Fresh Nashville This is the social media conference that comes to you. Social Fresh is a one-day, case-study-rich conference targeted for marketers. Social Fresh Nashville will have 30+ speakers, including Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer, Gavin Baker of Ruby Tuesday and John Andrews of Collective Bias (formerly of Walmart). ReadWriteWeb readers get a 15% discount with the code "RWW15". 14 January 2010: Palo Alto, California The Founder Showcase The Founder Showcase , by TheFunded.com, is an open startup pitch and networking event that highlights the newest cutting-edge businesses and helps innovators gain traction among the Silicon Valley elite. On Thursday, January 14th, 10 of the most promising early-stage companies, as selected by over 13,000 registered Founders and CEOs on TheFunded.com, will present to an audience of over 300 investors, founders, and members of the press. A panel of experts will critique the pitches, and an open ballot of those in attendance will determine the Founder Showcase Winner. ReadWriteWeb readers receive a 10% discount when registering, just use discount code "RWW". 26 January 2010: San Francisco, California Catalyst Conference Vator.tv , a leading platform for entrepreneurs and innovators to broadcast themselves, and provider of news and information through VatorNews, and Girls in Tech, a social network enterprise focused on education and empowerment of influential women in technology, are seeking five women-led startups across any stage to present at the Catalyst Conference on January 26, 2010 at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. To be one of the five, join the Catalyst competition today and win the chance to present. 27 – 28 January 2010: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Enterprise Social 2.0: Rip or ROI? This senior executive event will bring together decision makers from the Top Fortune companies to discuss innovative strategies on how to maximise business performance through social media engagement. The event will include keynote speeches, best-practice presentations as well as interactive discussion sessions. The summit will provide excellent opportunities for you to hear international experts discuss best practices on how to drive business performance using Web 2.0 and social media. Key issues to be discussed include: How to integrate social media programs successfully into business strategies? Building business momentum, visibility and market growth through social media Measuring success and influence using metrics and analytics: what are the tools and techniques Integrating viral marketing and social media into traditional marketing mix Developing and activating audiences using social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs 1 – 5, February 2010: New York City, Berlin, London, San Francisco, Toronto, São Paulo Social Media Week The second annual Social Media Week conference will explore the profound impact that social media has on culture, business communications and society at large. The conference is designed as a series of localized events, which city partners are responsible for organizing. Programs will span a variety of formats, ranging from talks and panel discussions, to interactive workshops, seminars and networking events. Registration will open in January 2010 and the majority of events will be free thanks to the global sponsors and event partners. You can find more information at http://socialmediaweekny.com . 4 February 2010: San Francisco, California Vator Splash Vator.tv , a leading platform for innovators and entrepreneurs to broadcast themselves, is holding its inaugural Vator Splash event on February 4, 2010 at the Cafe du Nord in San Francisco. Catch onstage presenters: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, Smule CEO Jeff Smith, August Capital VC Howard Hartenbaum and Google Ventures VC Bill Maris. Ten promising startups will also get to present onstage. Enter the Vator Splash competition if you want to present. ReadWriteWeb readers get a 25% discount on their tickets using the code VatorReadWriteWeb . 8 February 2010: Tampa, Florida Social Fresh Tampa This is the social media conference that comes to you. Social Fresh is a one-day, case-study-rich conference targeted for marketers. Social Fresh Tampa will have 30+ speakers, including Chris Barger of GM, Maggie Fox of Social Media Group and John Andrews of Collective Bias (formerly of Walmart). ReadWriteWeb readers get a 15% discount with the code "RWW15". 10 February 2010: New York City Online Community Unconference East The Online Community Unconference East is a gathering of online community professionals - managers, developers, business people, tool providers, investors - to discuss experience and strategies in the development and growth of online communities. As we have found with our past events, the best source of information on all of these challenges is other knowledgeable practitioners. The event runs from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Digital Sandbox. 11 February 2010: New York City NYC Venture Capital and Angel Showcase FundingPost is hosting a VC showcase where 20-plus VC funds and angel groups will be exhibiting their firms during a great cocktail party setting. Each fund will have their own table setup for the sole purpose of meeting great new companies. Additionally, there will be an optional pitching workshop from 2:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. The cost to participate in the workshop will be $400. This workshop includes the $125 ticket to the event, and a 1/4 page listing in the Venture Guide Magazine. This event is sponsored by Credit Suisse, and takes place at One Madison Avenue, from 6-9:15 p.m. 18 February 2010: Silicon Valley, California Future of Funding Active limited partners, top rated venture capitalists, and successful entrepreneurs are invited to Silicon Valley on February 18, 2010 to discuss the Future of Funding. The venture capital bubble has burst, and change is coming. Now is the time to have a constructive dialog about the future with all of the stakeholders at the table. Don't miss the opportunity to partake in this exclusive event hosted by TheFunded . Please visit www.futureoffunding.com to see speaker and event details. ReadWriteWeb readers use the code "RWW" and get 10% off. 15 – 16 March 2010: London, England 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum — London The 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum takes place at the Olympia Conference Centre in London. The two-day event features four dedicated conference streams: Social Networking World Forum Enterprise social media Social TV World Forum Mobile Social Networking Forum The event features key speakers from global brands, organizations, social networking publishers and developers, pioneering social media leaders, top agencies, content producers, and more. Full workshop program within exhibition area Evening networking reception Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates Free pass for exhibition only 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. 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

See original here:
ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 19 December 2009

2009 has been a big year for mobile and real-time technologies, which is reflected in our selection of the top 10 Web platforms of the year. It's the final instalment of our series of top products of 2009 . As we noted in last year's round-up , a web platform can be as simple as an API (like Twitter's) allowing external developers to tap into a company's data. It can also be software and services, like Amazon's Web Services. Or it can be a fully fledged development platform, such as iPhone SDK and Adobe AIR. Whatever the case, platforms on the Web allow people to build on top of another company's product, so we think it's an appropriate way to close our Top Web Products series. Sponsor ReadWriteWeb's Best Products of 2009: Twitter As Twitter 's Director of Platform Ryan Sarver repeatedy pointed out during his presentation at this year's LeWeb, Twitter and its ecosystem of third-party developers have a highly symbiotic relationship. Twitter's APIs are still rate-limited and Twitter won't make the full firehose of feeds available to all of its developers until early 2010. There can be no doubt, however, that Twitter has managed to create one of the most vibrant developer communities around its platform. Over the course of the year, Twitter introduced a number of new APIs, including a geolocation API that makes it easy to attach geodata to a tweet and the controversial retweet API . With Twitter Connect, Twitter also released a competitor to Facebook Connect, although this tool hasn't found widespread adoption yet. Facebook Just like Twitter, Facebook 's success has increasingly become dependent on the third-party ecosystem that has grown up around the Facebook platform . According to Ethan Beard, who manages the development of the Facebook Platform, over 500,00 applications have been developed on top of the Facebook platform and over 250 million users use at least one of these. The Facebook platform is not just about letting users play games like Farmville and or novelty apps like SuperPoke. Facebook Connect, for example, is becoming increasingly popular as a sign-in mechanism on third-party sites. Over 80,000 sites now utilize Facebook Connect, 60 million Facebook users use it and two-thirds of all the sites in the Comscore 100 index currently use it. WordPress.org Without any doubt, the world of blogging would look very different today if it wasn't for Automattic's open-source version of WordPress . The core open-source WordPress project is driven by a passionate group of developers, but a majority of development happens in the community that builds plugins for WordPress. Earlier this year, WordPress released version 2.8 of its self-hosted product, a major overhaul of its core product. It includes a new interface and new options for plugin developers, including the ability to install and search for plugins from within the admin interface. Among some of the most popular WordPress plugins are an image gallery , an SEO tool and an analytics package . iPhone We admit that our choice of the iPhone as a top web platform could be somewhat controversial. After all, Apple's less than efficient approval system and the closed nature of the platform have even led some developers to abandon development for the iPhone altogether. There can be little doubt, however, that Apple has created one of the most successful mobile developer programs. The App Store now features over 100,000 applications and an increasing number of web services now offer versions of their products that are specifically geared towards the iPhone's Safari browser. This year, Apple extended the SDK with a number of new and improved features when it released version 3.0 of the iPhone OS . These updates include better support for 3D gaming, augmented reality apps, easier access to maps, in-app purchases and support for push notifications. Android Android came of age in 2009. It was still a relatively unknown mobile operating system in the consumers' conscience in 2008, but this year not only saw a large increase in developer activity but also a strong interest in Android phones like the Motorola Droid . Thanks to the open-source nature of the project, Android made it easy for developers of augmented reality applications to test their ideas long before Apple offered the necessary APIs on its platform. While the Motorola Droid features Android 2.0 already, most other manufacturers don't offer this update for their customers yet. Next page: Top 10 Web Platforms of 2009, 6-10 Data.gov 2009 saw a number of interesting developments in the Government 2.0 movement . One of the most high-profile backers of this movement was - surprisingly - the US government. With Data.gov and similar government projects that feature APIs, developers can now access a wealth of information that was previously hard to access. By providing API access to this data, the U.S. government has opened itself up to more scrutiny , as citizens can now analyze this data with unprecedented ease. New York Times APIs No other news organization offers as many APIs as the New York Times - although the Guardian's Open Platform was also a strong candidate for this list. Over the course of this year, the New York Times opened up an API for accessing an archive of all the paper's stories since 1981 and APIs to access information about the U.S. Congress and the New York State legislature . There can be little doubt that the newspaper industry needs to find new ways to monetize its product. For some papers, this has meant making it harder for consumers and developers to mash up their content. The New York Times, however, has decided that increased openness is a better strategy. [disclosure: RWW syndicates content to NYT] Google App Engine With App Engine, Google gives developers an easy way to develop and deploy cloud applications through a comprehensive set of services and APIs. This year, Google introduced Java as an additional language in the App Engine's repertoire. App Engine now also supports XMPP , which has allowed a number of developers to create services that push real-time updated to IM clients or third-party applications. In addition, Google also announced a pricing structure for App Engine in February. In November, Google had to face some negative publicity around App Engine, when it became known that some hackers were using the service to host a bot net. Overall, however, the service has not suffered from any major security issues so far. Azure Azure is Microsoft's big push towards cloud computing. While it is still too early to judge the success of this platform, we think it would be wrong to underestimate Microsoft's commitment to this space and the size of its developer ecosystem. While Amazon and RackSpace's cloud services are clearly more popular than Microsoft's new service, there can be little doubt that the arrival of Microsoft in this market will help to push the incumbents towards more innovation. Adobe AIR While Adobe AIR is nowhere near perfect, very few other platforms have the same cross-platform reach as AIR. It allows developers to create one application and distribute it for all the major operating systems. Thanks to its auto-updating features, AIR also makes it easy for developers to keep their install base up to date. This year, Adobe launched AIR 2 , which now allows developers to access mass storage devices, drag-and-drop support for remote files and rudimentary support for P2P networking. In addition, AIR 2 also enables developers to use the multi-touch capabilities of modern screens. Those are our picks! Let us know your thoughts or what we may've missed, in the comments. Discuss

See the original post:
Top 10 Web Platforms of 2009

Welcome to this week's events guide. As always, you can download the entire event calendar in iCal format or import it into your Google Calendar. You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. This events guide is a weekly feature here on ReadWriteWeb. We publish it every weekend, as good a time as any to review your conference plans. Know of an event taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us . Sponsor 11 January 2010: Nashville, Tennessee Social Fresh Nashville This is the social media conference that comes to you. Social Fresh is a one-day, case-study-rich conference targeted for marketers. Social Fresh Nashville will have 30+ speakers, including Jason Falls of Social Media Explorer, Gavin Baker of Ruby Tuesday and John Andrews of Collective Bias (formerly of Walmart). ReadWriteWeb readers get a 15% discount with the code "RWW15". 14 January 2010: Palo Alto, California The Founder Showcase The Founder Showcase , by TheFunded.com, is an open startup pitch and networking event that highlights the newest cutting-edge businesses and helps innovators gain traction among the Silicon Valley elite. On Thursday, January 14th, 10 of the most promising early-stage companies, as selected by over 13,000 registered Founders and CEOs on TheFunded.com, will present to an audience of over 300 investors, founders, and members of the press. A panel of experts will critique the pitches, and an open ballot of those in attendance will determine the Founder Showcase Winner. ReadWriteWeb readers receive a 10% discount when registering, just use discount code "RWW". 26 January 2010: San Francisco, California Catalyst Conference Vator.tv , a leading platform for entrepreneurs and innovators to broadcast themselves, and provider of news and information through VatorNews, and Girls in Tech, a social network enterprise focused on education and empowerment of influential women in technology, are seeking five women-led startups across any stage to present at the Catalyst Conference on January 26, 2010 at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. To be one of the five, join the Catalyst competition today and win the chance to present. 27 – 28 January 2010: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Enterprise Social 2.0: Rip or ROI? This senior executive event will bring together decision makers from the Top Fortune companies to discuss innovative strategies on how to maximise business performance through social media engagement. The event will include keynote speeches, best-practice presentations as well as interactive discussion sessions. The summit will provide excellent opportunities for you to hear international experts discuss best practices on how to drive business performance using Web 2.0 and social media. Key issues to be discussed include: How to integrate social media programs successfully into business strategies? Building business momentum, visibility and market growth through social media Measuring success and influence using metrics and analytics: what are the tools and techniques Integrating viral marketing and social media into traditional marketing mix Developing and activating audiences using social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs 4 February 2010: San Francisco, California Vator Splash Vator.tv , a leading platform for innovators and entrepreneurs to broadcast themselves, is holding its inaugural Vator Splash event on February 4, 2010 at the Cafe du Nord in San Francisco. Catch onstage presenters: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, Smule CEO Jeff Smith, August Capital VC Howard Hartenbaum and Google Ventures VC Bill Maris. Ten promising startups will also get to present onstage. Enter the Vator Splash competition if you want to present. ReadWriteWeb readers get a 25% discount on their tickets using the code VatorReadWriteWeb . 8 February 2010: Tampa, Florida Social Fresh Tampa This is the social media conference that comes to you. Social Fresh is a one-day, case-study-rich conference targeted for marketers. Social Fresh Tampa will have 30+ speakers, including Chris Barger of GM, Maggie Fox of Social Media Group and John Andrews of Collective Bias (formerly of Walmart). ReadWriteWeb readers get a 15% discount with the code "RWW15". 10 February 2010: New York City Online Community Unconference East The Online Community Unconference East is a gathering of online community professionals - managers, developers, business people, tool providers, investors - to discuss experience and strategies in the development and growth of online communities. As we have found with our past events, the best source of information on all of these challenges is other knowledgeable practitioners. The event runs from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Digital Sandbox. 18 February 2010: Silicon Valley, California Future of Funding Active limited partners, top rated venture capitalists, and successful entrepreneurs are invited to Silicon Valley on February 18, 2010 to discuss the Future of Funding. The venture capital bubble has burst, and change is coming. Now is the time to have a constructive dialog about the future with all of the stakeholders at the table. Don't miss the opportunity to partake in this exclusive event hosted by TheFunded . Please visit www.futureoffunding.com to see speaker and event details. ReadWriteWeb readers use the code "RWW" and get 10% off. 15 – 16 March 2010: London, England 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum — London The 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum takes place at the Olympia Conference Centre in London. The two-day event features four dedicated conference streams: Social Networking World Forum Enterprise social media Social TV World Forum Mobile Social Networking Forum The event features key speakers from global brands, organizations, social networking publishers and developers, pioneering social media leaders, top agencies, content producers, and more. Full workshop program within exhibition area Evening networking reception Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates Free pass for exhibition only 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. 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

Read more:
ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 12 December 2009

According to our sources at Citysearch , Twitter is opening a new Sign-Up API. Citysearch wrote us to say that the API will "allow local businesses to integrate their existing Twitter presence or create a new account directly from the Citysearch business profile and tweet from their Citysearch profile page." How does this new API relate to Twitter's OAuth feature? What can a Sign-Up API do that OAuth doesn't? Also, how did Citysearch get wind of this development before a general announcement was made? Sponsor We were able to confirm that the API is, in fact, different from Twitter's OAuth feature. Citysearch rep Brandi Willard told us this evening that Twitter has not yet made a public announcement about the API. "We're the first company to implement it," she said. Willard continued, "There are a lot of options for the type of content you can show with Twitter integration. It's pretty much the same functionality [as OAuth, but you can also sign up." "We've been talking to them for a while about integrating Citysearch with Twitter, and they were looking to bring on more smalll businesses. It just made sense." So Twitter is dipping into Citysearch's trove of small, local businesses - and potential Twitter users - for the maiden voyage of its latest API. This makes sense in light of Twitter's recent integration of geolocation information with some tweets, and it also makes sense from a monetization standpoint. Companies in the small, local business space could benefit a lot from sign-up and geolocation APIs, and many of these companies are already devoting significant chunks of marketing budgets to the online and interactive advertising. Twitter is definitely a hot commodity for small businesses that can figure out how to use it, but we're still unclear on exactly how the new API will work. Here's what the sign-up looks like on Citysearch, and what the Twitter data will bring to a business' Citysearch page: We will bring you more news and technical details about the Sign-Up API in the morning, when we'll interview more Citysearch execs and quiz them to our heart's content. In the mean time, the folks at Citysearch are happy to have another avenue to integrate Twitter data. "We really value having all the right content on our site to allow consumers to make an educated decision,' said Willard. "We see social media as a big part of that, whether the content is generated on our site or elsewhere. The more businesses that sign up for Twitter, the more content we'll have on our site." We applaud Citysearch's new semantic, synaptic direction in aggregating content, and we look forward to learning all about how their new sign-ups will work tomorrow morning. Stay tuned! Discuss

See the original post here:
Twitter Rolls Out New Sign-Up API, Citysearch First to Implement [SCREENSHOTS]

About 18 months ago, we wrote about an obscure search startup from Germany called FAROO . We believed that its radical alternative, using peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, had a shot at being a real disruptive force. Today, it has made some progress, has raised some money and is getting out into the market. (Disclosure: FAROO is currently a ReadWriteWeb sponsor). FAROO is wisely underplaying P2P in its marketing, preferring more fashionable terms such as "real-time search" and "social discovery." But the P2P technology drives it. Sponsor So, we decided to invite someone who understands P2P at a technical level to interview Wolf Garbe, FAROO's founder. Our tech expert, Kiril Pertsev, of Agily Networks , has already written about P2P for us in the past . Kiril: Why .NET? Did you already have development resources or did you make this choice because you consider it a better option for networked desktop applications? Would you make this choice again? And if you're not satisfied with .NET, what would your platform of choice be, given all of your experience over the past few years? Wolf: I come from Delphi (Object Pascal). So, the choice of C#/.NET was a dedicated decision for a new platform, not driven by legacy. When I started to work on the first prototype in 2004, Delphi moved towards .NET. I preferred to go with the original, especially because the development of C# was led by Anders Hejlsberg, the designer of Borland's Turbo Pascal (which Delphi derived from). Of course, I also looked into Java, which I found quite similar, both from the language perspective (C# vs. Java) and the JIT Runtime environment (Java Virtual Machine vs. .NET Runtime). The decision for C# was based on the dominating desktop market share of Windows and the assumption that embedding the .NET framework into the OS would ensure fast penetration of .NET. This only partially came true, partly due to the limited success of Vista, which was the first Windows version with .NET pre-installed. Kiril: Doesn't this choice hinder your ability to move to Mac and Linux platforms. Wolf: We were betting on Mono for platform compatibility. Unfortunately, Mac OS X still has no Mono application launcher, other than starting with the terminal, which is not feasible for a mass market. With the increasing importance of the Mac OS X platform, I expect this to change. Silverlight today is already natively available for Mac. For the ultimate platform independence, we are also continually observing the diverse RIA developments (AJAX, AIR, Silverlight, Mozilla Prism, HTML 5 persistent web storage, Mozilla's DOM storage, Google Gears and Flash persistent storage), which could one day allow us to remove the download and installation step for P2P. But so far, no solution meets all of the requirements: out-of-browser capability, permanent background operation, auto-start option, tray icon support, cross-domain connection support, persistent storage, accepting an incoming connection and receiving data and NAT traversal. Kiril: If you become dissatisfied with .NET, what would be your next platform of choice. Wolf: Although not everything went as expected, I still believe that .NET is a very powerful platform, and C# as a language is evolving at a much faster and broader pace than Java. Today, we have a good .NET penetration rate in the US and Europe. With Windows 7, I expect that to increase in Asia as well. Kiril: I see that you're using a pretty simple P2P communication technology instead of sophisticated Hamachi-like NAT traversal using UDP hole punching. Wolf: I suppose you are referring to the transport layer, which is HTTP over TCP/IP. The real P2P overlay protocol on top of that is not that simple anymore. Because our distributed search engine system architecture breaks with almost all legacy paradigms, we thought it would be a good idea that it be at least based on proven and widely used standards wherever possible. There are several reasons for this: It reduces complexity and development time. It improves compatibility (there is probably no protocol more widely used than HTTP over Port 80). It's unlikely that this connectivity will break anytime soon by changes in protocols, OS, drivers or hardware. Behaving like a standard browser from the protocol view makes the application less vulnerable to filtering, blocking or traffic shaping and ensures that it even works in most corporate environments. NAT traversal is the most critical issue for every P2P application. It's really a shame that although the Internet is built on a distributed foundation, end-to-end connectivity between users in a decentralized way is completely broken . We are using several NAT traversal techniques: Manual Port Forwarding, Automatic Port Forwarding via UPnP and Teredo. Teredo is a IPv6 Tunneling technology , standardized according to RFC4380 . Teredo is part of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7; with Miredo , there is also an open-source implementation for Linux and Mac OS X available. Microsoft reports that with Teredo, the chance of a connection between two peers increases from 15% to 84% (PDF link). Our observations are somewhere between 60% and 70%. Teredo is quite sophisticated technology and is a more universal approach. It provides connectivity at the OS level, in contrast to having several applications in use, where each uses its own proprietary traversal technology. Kiril: Could you please elaborate on choosing network technology, having achieved a substantial number of users and collecting usage statistics. Do you know how many active and passive peers you have at any given time? What is the ratio? Wolf: We have solid insight into the state of our P2P network. We know the number of active and passive peers on any given day (using the log from our update server). The active peer ratio is between 60 and 70%. We are also currently working on an improved distributed intraday statistic. (The distributed statistic currently built into the P2P client is not valid anymore for the increased network size. For scalability, every peer has only a limited view of the whole network, which requires more advanced methods for calculating the actual network size.) Kiril: Your search index essentially is a distributed storage system with DHT addressing, right? Wolf: Yes. Kiril: Have you thought about other uses of such technology, beyond search: back-up, private distributed storage, file-sharing, etc. (like Wuala )? In a publication from 2001 (in German), in which I also outlined the idea of a peer-to-peer search engine, this was part of an integrated solution with a P2P Web server, P2P file-sharing and a P2P anonymizer. Due to various legal copyright issues, we are currently not looking into file-sharing. But from a technological standpoint, a distributed storage system is quite universal, from storing a search engine index to attention data, Web pages, instant messages, social network profiles, micro-blogging messages, back-ups and files. Kiril: Could you please share your vision of the mythical "P2P operating system," now that we already have P2P networking, P2P processing, P2P storage and P2P applications (like search). Wolf: P2P and distributed architectures are a universal principle that the whole Internet is built upon. Unfortunately, distributed technologies like Mail, IRC, Usenet and even independent Web servers are being increasingly replaced by centralized solutions (the cloud, Google Wave, etc.). Despite the obvious short-term convenience, this leads to long-term monopolies and dependencies and makes the Internet infrastructure more vulnerable in terms of reliability and political influence. I believe that a solid, standardized P2P stack integrated in the operating system can fix the broken end-to-end connectivity between users, enabling the use of an endless amount of latent storage, memory, processor cycles and bandwidth. Distributed storage is certainly a core component, as is distributed processing to make more sense of all of the data. On top of this, there should be a distributed programming framework, which enables the development of distributed applications and the distribution and aggregations of tasks in a standardized manner (e.g. the distributed version of MapReduce/Hadoop is part of this). A distributed attention data repository, shared by all applications, but under full user control. There should be resource management that puts the user in full control of the amount of resources she or he would like to dedicate to a particular distributed project—possibly combined with a ratio system and/or virtual currency to maintain a healthy usage to contribution ratio. Distributed identity management and authentication, authorization and access control. This could replace most of the centralized cloud solutions by delivering the same convenience and scalability in a decentralized way. BOINC (the universal distributed processing platform where seti@home runs today) goes partially in that direction. This is partially because the peers contribute, by taking tasks from a centralized server and providing results back to this server. But this system is not fully distributed, nor are the results intended to be used by the peers themselves. Kiril: Do you encounter scalability issues? Do you have any single point of failure resources in your P2P network? How reliable is it—meaning, what percentage of the network could you lose without seriously degrading search quality and performance? Wolf: We have scaled the P2P network in a controlled way. While we have made some scalability-related adjustments to our P2P protocol, the core algorithms proved that there are no inherent scalability limits. Due to our fully distributed architecture, we have no single point of failure. We have twenty-fold redundancy of each item, which replicates automatically if peers leave the network. Only if all 20 copies of the item are removed at the same time would this piece of information be lost. This leads to a mean information lifetime of 120 years under realistic churn (i.e. the peers randomly joining and abandoning the network temporarily or permanently). This is more than sufficient for search, where 50% of the information changes during the year (and is therefore refreshed anyway at a much higher rate). Kiril: Do you think that "mobile P2P" is feasible? What would you say about implementing P2P search (or any other application) on, say, the iPhone? Are mobile terminals ready for P2P? Are cell networks ready? Do they have enough CPU power, etc? Wolf: Today, we distinguish between mobile connectivity and landlines. But I believe this separation will fade away. Device performance, bandwidth and flat-rate pricing structures will become close. While today, processor cycles, memory and bandwidth in mobile phones are too precious for wide use of P2P applications, this will change. Even "walling off" tendencies and restrictive App Store policies will be liberated by regulation or user demand. But much more interesting than bringing file-sharing to the iPhone will be P2P applications that use mobility, possibly combined with GPS, distributed camera/augmented reality and RFID. This will bring P2P technology into completely new application fields. Think of distributed traffic control (peers could be users with iPhones in cars or the cars themselves) or applications to lead crowds of people at large public events or in disaster zones, as well as gaming, distributed weather and earthquake prognosis . Bluetooth could even make this independent of cell networks. Global communication between peers would be asynchronous through moving people . Also, cell network and Bluetooth mashups would be possible. In the near future, we will provide Web access to our P2P Web search for mobile users. They will just be passive users of the resources contributed by active PC users. Kiril: What is your vision of the P2P road map? Apparently, the first "killer P2P application" was file-sharing, Kazaa, then BitTorrent. Given that the next one is search, what would be the next after that? Wolf: As I mentioned, instead of another isolated P2P application, I would like to see P2P built into the OS and Internet stack in a standardized manner. So that an application can benefit from P2P without any specific effort, in the same easy and natural way that applications today use the Internet (HTTP, AJAX and JSON). Then, P2P technology would become ubiquitous and part of almost every application. Every application that uses cloud services today could benefit from such P2P technology. An example would be a distributed platform for micro-blogging services and social networks, heralding the end of walled gardens. But my personal vision is to combine P2P with the next thing after search. Twenty years ago, I wrote a small expert system on my C64 (today, a C64 emulator is on the iPhone!), using Predicate Logic and an Eliza -style natural-language interface. So, you could tell the system, " All cats have claws. All tigers are cats. " And then you could ask the system, " Do tigers have claws? " And it would answer, " Yes! " You could retrieve information and relationships that were not explicitly stored (or that anyone was even aware existed). At that time I had to enter every bit of information manually. Today, almost all information on earth is accessible on the Internet, together with comments and conversation streams. Predicate logic would be supported by fuzzy logic, statistical machine learning and more. Today, known translations are used to translate untranslated text. But this could be much more universal: using known connections in one field to explain unknown correlations in another . Such a system could autonomously formulate queries, combine facts, fill in the missing link in a theory to prove or falsify it. So, I think the next step after search will be reasoning; and in combination with P2P technology and distributed processing, this may bring us a kind of global brain. A brain that not only stores and retrieves information but that is capable of cognition and conclusion at a giant scale. It will discover hidden correlations and unknown facts and will answer questions with answers that cannot be found in any document. You can see, this is much more HAL than the next Google. Kiril: What technical feature of your technology are you most proud of? 100+ patents must something. Wolf: Most crucial has been to ensure both a quick response time and complete results for queries with multiple terms and phrases (only 15% of searches are single keywords) in a completely distribute P2P architecture. For queries with multiple keywords, we eliminated the need for the intersection of huge posting lists across different peers. While we had to invent a lot of things—just because they hadn't been done before in a way that was required for distributed search—they are not all patented (so, we don't own 100+ patents). Prior to funding, this would have been impossible financially. Kiril: How is your real-time search related to the P2P search? Does it also run on a distributed network? If so, then how do peers communicate results to the front page of the FAROO website? Wolf: Currently, we use a hybrid architecture. While we are building up our P2P network and use it for general Web search, in parallel we use a central index for the real-time data. The focus on the most recent and popular Web pages keeps the costs moderate. Attention data collected by FAROO peers serves also for real-time discovery and ranking (in addition to analyzing the Twitter stream). But we believe in a holistic approach. Our real-time search will evolve into an integral part of Web search and be fully based on our P2P architecture . There will still be a gateway/proxy server that enables Web access to our P2P network for those users not able or ready to install a P2P client (e.g. for mobile). Discuss

See original here:
Technical Q&A With FAROO Founder