Upcoming Events and Conferences

John Musser, February 4th, 2008

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In the next two months there are a number of notable conferences and events that should be of interest to folks in this space. As platforms and APIs become continue to grow we’re seeing more conferences dedicated to them (like Mashup Camp and Graphing Social Patterns) or industry-specific events with API and mashup-related sessions and tracks (like VON and eComm2008).

• At the end of this month is the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) in Miami for three days starting on the 28th. Checking the schedule you can see the lineup includes a number of platform-related talks including Google’s Kevin Marks on the Future of APIs and Leah Culver on the Future of Web Services. The workshops also look interesting including one on OpenSocial from Plaxo’s Joesph Smarr. ProgrammableWeb readers can get 15% off the price of either a one-day or conference and workshop ticket using the code ‘PWEBM08′.
• A pair of popular O’Reilly conferences are happening in San Diego the first week of March: Graphing Social Patterns West (aka GSP West) and the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. GSP West has two days worth of interesting speakers and tracks that cover both the business side and technology sides of social network platforms. In parallel is ETech, with one of the most diverse agendas of any tech conference with topics ranging from using web services to build databases in the cloud, to genomics hacking, to DIY survival, to iPhone hacking. O’Reilly Media is a PW sponsor and readers can save 20% off ETech registration using discount code et08pgw and save 30% off Graphing Social Patterns with code gspw08pgw.
• Microsoft describes its MIX08 Conference at the Venetian in Las Vegas on March 5-7 as “an intimate conversation between developers, designers and business professionals.” The event focuses on their leading-edge technologies and for mashup developers there’s lots of relevant content including sessions on Windows Live Services, Mashups, Virtual Earth, and Silverlight 2.0. Ray Ozzie and Steve Ballmer are scheduled to speak, and there is a contest for best WPF/Expression blend-built mash-up.
• Mashup Camp 6: March 17-20, Mountain View, CA. The latest installment of the mashup community’s leading event will feature the same open format as well as the popular speed geeking and mashup contests. This one’s back at the Computer History Museum, a great venue for this event. The two day unconference portion of the event will be preceded by the two day Mashup University with how-to sessions for developers. You can see our earlier coverage of past Mashup Camps here.
• VON.x: March 17-20, San Jose. The largest IP communications event is now in its tenth year. As you can see on our PW dashboard for Telephony APIs there’s a lot happening in this market. Thomas Howe, who helped us create and run this vertical for us will be holding a pre-conference executive summit, Communications Enabled Business Processes, focusing on how to extend and improve business processes using voice APIs and mashups. And part the event this year is the unconference VONcamp where you can help define the agenda.
• Another worthwhile communications event with deep API and mashup content is eComm2008: Emerging Communications Conference, happening March 12-14th in Mountain View. The theme is that VOIP and telephony becomes much more interesting when it’s combined with other “vectors” like open source, social networking, p2p and mashups. As you can see from the schedule, there are presentations from API platform providers including Skype, Google, Twitter, BT, LignUp, and Yahoo on their new Fire Eagle service.