About Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco

Web 2.0 Expo, co-produced by O'Reilly Media, Inc. and UBM TechWeb, showcases the latest Web 2.0 business models, development paradigms and design strategies for the builders of the next-generation Web. This annual multi-track conference brings together people, ideas, connections, contacts, products, and companies to foster stronger Web 2.0 communities. Web 2.0 Expo events occur in San Francisco and New York and feature influential keynotes and speakers, detailed workshops, a Launch Pad startup program, an Expo show floor, a Web2Open unconference, and rich networking events.

The Web continues to be an engine of economic growth, fueled by a host of new business models, development models, and design patterns that collectively fall under the umbrella of Web 2.0, a term coined at the birth of Web 2.0 Summit, a joint venture between O’Reilly Media and TechWeb.

To meet the increasing demand for Web 2.0 comprehension and skills, and to build a broader Web 2.0 community, O'Reilly Media and UBM TechWeb (formerly CMP Technology) launched the inaugural Web 2.0 Expo in April 2007 in San Francisco. Web 2.0 Expo, a companion event to Web 2.0 Summit, was the first conference and tradeshow for the rapidly growing ranks of designers and developers, product managers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketers, and business strategists who are embracing the opportunities created by Web 2.0 technologies. Web 2.0 Expo has now expanded to include not only the Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco, but also New York.

Program Information

The program will spotlight experts, leaders, and under-the-radar innovations, and in the spirit of Web 2.0, there will be ample opportunity for attendees to connect, contribute, and collaborate. Web 2.0 Expo will be a place for creativity, engineering, and innovation, focusing on four conversations:

Education: a vetted, cohesive conference program to maximize the sharing of knowledge and expertise around creating the next-generation web
Tradeshow: a traditional tradeshow floor introducing builders of the Web to providers of tools, technology, services and infrastructure
Networking: a meeting ground fostering face-to-face business development for entrepreneurs, VCs, partnerships and recruitment
Launch Pad: a platform for notable companies and products to debut

Conference Tracks Will Include:

Design & User Experience
Development
Social Media Marketing
Strategy & Business Models
Focus on Analytics
Focus on Community
Focus on Enterprise
Focus on Mobile
Focus on Real-time
Focus on Cloud Computing
Sponsored Sessions

Who Should Attend?

Web 2.0 Expo is explicitly designed to address the needs of technical, design, marketing, and business professionals building the next-generation web, including:

Business strategists and analysts
UI designers and consultants
Web designers, architects, and engineers
Interactive media designers and marketers
Product managers
Marketing, advertising, and communications professionals
Community managers
Content and eCommerce managers
CxOs and IT managers
Business managers
Developers, Programmers, and Sys-Admins
Grassroots developers and hackers
Web analytics and SEO/SEM professionals
VCs, entrepreneurs, and owners of start-ups
Vendors who provide tools and services to the builders of the Web

The 2009 event brought together participants from these—and many more—companies:

Adobe, AOL, American Greetings Interactive, Apple, BA Venture Partners, BP, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Discovery Health Media, Dow Jones & Company, EMC, Experian Interactive, First Round Capital, Great Spirit Ventures, Hitachi, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, IEEE, Intel Corporation, Intuit, Jet Propultion Laboratory, Labrador Ventures, MTV Networks, Magazine Publishers of America, McGill University, Monster Worldwide, Motion Picture Association of America, Nokia, North Bridge Venture Partners, Northrop Grumman Information Technology, RealNetworks, Simon & Schuster, Standard & Poor's, Sun Microsystems, Symbol Technologies, The Heritage Foundation, The Wall Street Journal Online, Turner Broadcastings Systems, University of Richmond, University of Southern California, Walt Disney Internet Group, WhitePages.com

What Is Web 2.0?

Defining exactly what Web 2.0 means is still an ongoing conversation. Tim O'Reilly attempts to clarify Web 2.0, digging into what it means to view the Web as a platform, and which applications fall squarely under its purview and which do not.

Program Co-Chairs

Brady Forrest
Brady Forrest is Chair for O'Reilly's Where 2.0 conference. Additionally, he co-Chairs Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Berlin and NYC. Brady writes for O'Reilly Radar tracking changes in technology. He previously worked at Microsoft on Live Search (he came to Microsoft when it acquired MongoMusic). Brady lives in Seattle, where he builds cars for Burning Man and runs Ignite. You can track his web travels at Truffle Honey.

Sarah Milstein
Sarah Milstein is TechWeb's General Manager and Co-Chair for Web 2.0 Expo; she is also coauthor with Tim O'Reilly of The Twitter Book. Previously, she was on the senior editorial staff at O'Reilly Media, where she founded the Tools of Change for Publishing Conference (TOC) and led development of the Missing Manuals, a best-selling series of computer books for non-geeks. Before joining O'Reilly in 2003, Sarah was a freelance writer and editor, and a regular contributor to The New York Times. She was also the CSA program founder for Just Food, a local-food-and-farms non-profit, and co-founder of Two Tomatoes Records, a label that distributes and promotes the work of children's musician Laurie Berkner.

Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco Advisory Board

Conference Diversity

O'Reilly Media and UBM TechWeb believe in spreading the knowledge of innovators. We believe that innovation is enhanced by a variety of perspectives, and our goal is to create an inclusive, respectful conference environment that invites participation from people of all races, ethnicities, genders, ages, abilities, religions, and sexual orientations.

We're actively seeking to increase the diversity of our attendees, speakers, and sponsors through our calls for proposals, other open submission processes, and through dialogue with the larger communities we serve.

This is an ongoing process. We are talking to our program chairs, program committees, and various innovators, experts, and organizations about this goal and about ways they can help us achieve it.

Here are some ways you can help us build a more diverse conference experience:

Recommend appropriate speakers and/or program committee members to the conference chairs (see individual O'Reilly and UBM TechWeb conference sites for program information; you may also send an email to diversity@oreilly.com)
Forward our call for proposals to relevant affinity groups with the message that we are looking for a diverse speaker roster
Suggest to potential speakers that they submit a proposal during our Call for Participation conference phase (see individual O'Reilly conference sites for details)
Organize community-based public speaking trainings and practice events (Ignite is one popular format)
Suggest ways that the onsite conference experience can be more welcoming and supportive, free from intimidation and marginalization (send an email to diversity@oreilly.com)
Share your ideas and best practices for how we can realize our vision (send an email to diversity@oreilly.com)

We value diversity in the communities we bring together, and we welcome your contributions to bringing balanced representation of the richness of our collective human experience.

Link | 08/03/2010 4:27pm PDT