An LA-based investor recently told us, "Northern California is hyper competitive for engineers, and companies are always luring developers away from each other. Our community is smaller and no one wants to burn bridges. We've got lower staff turnover." At first I was skeptical, but a recent story on Hacker News now has me convinced. Sponsor On January 16, Bay Area developers will convene in Mountain View to stage the first "reverse job fair". Hosted by tech community center Hacker Dojo , a group of well-established software engineers, testers and project managers will welcome potential employers to visit their booths and check out science fair-style presentations of their programming projects. While much of the documentation of these projects is available via GitHub and the developers' personal websites, employers can ask candidates questions and get a feel for their personalities and interests. To attend the reverse job fair, you can sign up to the Google Group . Discuss

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Behold, The Power of the Programmers

In one of ReadWriteWeb's longest-running traditions, every year we review the top Internet companies and their impact over the past 12 months. Today we're announcing the 6th annual Best BigCo , a.k.a. big Internet company. Next week we'll announce Best LittleCo and Most Promising Company . In 2008 the Best BigCo went to Apple , due largely to the iPhone and App Store. Facebook won in 2007 , Google in 2006 and 2004 , and Yahoo! in 2005 . Who will be Best BigCo of 2009? Will Apple be the first company to win it two years running? Will Google win the honor for a 3rd year? How about Facebook, which grew significantly this year. Let's find out... Sponsor Best BigCo of 2009 The ReadWriteWeb team has chosen Google as our Best BigCo of 2009! Google last won it in 2006 and this is the third time we've honored the Mountain View company. Google is without question the predominant Internet company of our time; in large part because it continues to innovate and stay one step ahead of its competition. In our Top 100 Products List for 2009, seven Google products made the cut: Android platform Google App Engine Google Apps Google Chrome Google Maps Google Search Options and Rich Snippets Google Voice And we didn't even include Google Wave , its biggest launch of the year . We think Wave has a lot of potential, but it's clearly at the experimental stage still. The web browser Chrome was probably the Google product that had the biggest impact this year. Launched in late 2008 , Chrome still only holds a small share of the browser market and doesn't offer a stable version for OSX or Linux yet. However it has already changed the browser market. As we wrote in our Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2009 review, Chrome's relentless focus on speed helped to reignite the browser wars , and is changing the way developers and Google's competitors think about browsers. Chrome is also the basis for Google's upcoming Chrome OS , designed for netbooks - a growing fad in computers. So expect to see a lot more of Chrome in 2010. Runners-Up: Apple, Facebook It's been another good year for Apple and its iPhone platform. The iPhone is the leading smartphone in the market and the App Store now features over 100,000 applications . This year, as we mentioned in our Top 10 Web Platforms of 2009 review, Apple extended the SDK with version 3.0 of the iPhone OS . The updates included better support for 3D gaming, augmented reality apps, easier access to maps, in-app purchases and support for push notifications. With these kinds of improvements, we expect Apple to continue its success on the mobile Web in 2010 - despite increasing competition from Google's Android platform. Facebook had a stellar year too, passing the 300 million active user mark in September. It also continued to add features to the site, ranging from vanity URLs to a new sharing widget and a focus on real-time updates of its users' news streams. Facebook's user base is increasingly diverse , and it is now clearly the number one social network in the world, leaving MySpace in its dust. What's more, Facebook's user base is now bigger than the population of all but three countries in the world. Next Page: Honorable Mentions & Also Rans Honorable Mentions: Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe While Microsoft continued to struggle with its Windows Live brand , it did come out with at least one compelling new product in 2009. Until earlier this year, Google didn't have any serious competition in the search market. But with the launch of Microsoft's Bing in July, users suddenly had a new choice of search engine. Bing bills itself as a "decision engine" and its market share has climbed steadily over the last few months. Microsoft keeps adding interesting new features like visual search , hover previews, integrated Twitter search and a smart integration of some of Wolfram Alpha's most compelling features. We also recognized Windows Azure , Microsoft's cloud computing platform, among our Top Products of 2009 . Amazon had another good year in 2009. Its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) was one of our top 100 products this year. However Amazon had the most impact this year with a piece of hardware: its e-book reader, the Kindle. In May, Amazon unveiled the Kindle DX , featuring a 9.7-inch display that is about two-and-a-half-times larger than the Kindle 2. November was Amazon's best month ever for Kindle sales, and, according to the company, the Kindle is the "most wished for, the most gifted, and the #1 bestselling product across all product categories on Amazon." Very few Web platforms have the cross-platform reach of Adobe AIR . It allows developers to create one application and run it on all of the major operating systems. 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 enables developers to use the multi-touch capabilities of modern screens. Also Rans Unfortunately, the less said about Yahoo!, AOL, Mozilla, eBay - the better. It hasn't been a great year for any of them. Yahoo! struggled gamely and impressed us with its YQL (Yahoo Query Language) and SearchMonkey. But it is far from the Internet force it was in 2005, when we named it our Best BigCo. Yahoo still has a wide reach and is very popular amongst mainstream audiences, but it just isn't the force it once was. AOL has resorted to becoming a content farm in order to compete, eBay has squandered a valuable asset in Skype , and Mozilla - while continuing to innovate - has been hurt by Google's Chrome browser entering the market. Now let us know your thoughts. Do you think that Google deserves the Best BigCo of 2009? Ed: Thanks Frederic Lardinois , one of our writers whose year-end posts I liberally quoted from to create this article! Discuss

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Best BigCo of 2009

Here is this week's ReadWriteWeb 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 19 November 2009: Mountain View, California Under the Radar Featuring the most cutting-edge mobile startups from around the globe, Under the Radar will get you dialed in to what the 2010 mobile innovation marketplace will look like. It's a must-attend event for dealmakers from global carriers, brands, media companies, and handset manufacturers responsible for helping their companies leverage new mobile technology and innovation in the fast-evolving digital landscape. Save $200: book by 2 October 2009, and get the early-bird rate. 30 November 2009 New Way to Work Do you have a great story about your work environment? Job marketplace Elance and Vator.tv have partnered to host the "New Way to Work" competition, with a grand prize of $10,000 in cash or health insurance for the most compelling story. You can tell your story on Vator.tv, the premier platform for entrepreneurs to broadcast their voice, by uploading a video, posting an update, linking to a blog entry, or sharing a photo. Hurry, the competition ends on 30 November 2009. 1 – 3 December 2009: London, England Online Information & IMS 2009 Online Information and IMS together create the largest event dedicated to the information industry. Consisting of an exhibition delivering over 9,000 visitors from 70 countries, a conference and a show-floor seminar program, the event provides an annual meeting place for the global information industry. Online Information is once again set to play host to thousands of information professionals, information end-users and publishers from around the globe, meeting suppliers of online content, e-publishing, and library management solutions. IMS provides a forum for IT, business, and information management professionals to find unlimited, relevant advice, educational content and compare solutions under one roof. Attend IMS and meet suppliers of content management, search solutions, and Web 2.0 technologies. 1 – 3 December 2009: Boston, Massachusetts Gilbane Conference Boston Join us at the sixth annual "Gilbane Conference Boston: Content, Collaboration and Customers." Your content is your business, and you need to make your Web content part of an integrated platform for customers. You need to know solutions and technologies that are ready to be implemented today. Gilbane Conference Boston is built around the four major areas of how enterprises use Web and content technologies: Web business and engagement; Managing collaboration and social media: internal and external; Enterprise content: searching, integrating and publishing; Content infrastructure. Visit www.gilbaneboston.com for conference details. ReadWriteWeb readers, use the discount code "GILBANE" to save an additional $200. Register today! 1 – 3 December 2009: San Francisco Supernova The Supernova Conference is the thought-leadership forum for the network age. It brings together over 500 business, government and technology influencers to understand how decentralization and pervasive connectivity are changing our world. It's the only conference to focus on how networks have become the main instruments of change from both business and social perspectives. An ever-evolving network itself, the conference has become the place for highly interactive and spirited debates, making significant business connections and revelations on new innovation. ReadWriteWeb readers get a discount of $700 off the regular price when registering by 16 October 2009. Use code "RRW09". After October 16th, the discount changes to $200 off the regular price. Register here . 7 December 2009: San Francisco SF MusicTech Summit The SF MusicTech Summit brings together 600+ visionaries in the music/technology space, along with the best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, 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/technology eco-system in a proactive environment, highly conducive to deal making. Register with a great ReadWriteWeb 15% discount . 7 – 11 December 2009: Chicago, Illinois Search Engine Strategies 2009 From social media to local search to video SEO, Search Engine Strategies Chicago puts you in front of the experts who will help you sort which technologies and channel will take you to the next level and which are just hype. Search Engine Strategies is the pioneer of educational conference series in search engine marketing. It's the venue where the industry visionaries and thought leaders gather each year to discuss the newest trends, share insights and present the strategic action plans you need to grow your business. Sessions include: SEO Through Blogs and Feeds Duplicate Content and Multiple Site Issues What's the Link Between Search and Social? Online PR: Where to Next? Search Analytics See more at www.SearchEngineStrategies.com/chicago . ReadWriteWeb readers receive a 15% discount when registering here using RWW15 code. 11 December 2009: Mountain View, California Add-on-Con Add-on-Con is a single-day conference focused on the future of the browser and its emergence as a platform. Developer sessions will cover best practices, cross-browser development and mash-ups. Marketing sessions will focus on monetization opportunities, distribution strategies and stats. Join 200+ individuals involved in add-on development to help define an emerging new market in the Web's eco-system. ReadWriteWeb readers save $50 by using the discount code "addoncon09RRW." 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". 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 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". 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 Download this entire events calendar in iCal format. Discuss

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ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 21 November 2009