Press releases

Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco Announces Keynote Lineup

Press release: March 19, 2008

Marc Andreessen, Max Levchin and Johnathan Schwartz Join Dozens of Others to Examine the Future of the Web

SEBASTOPOL, March 19, 2008 Sebastopol--TechWeb (formerly CMP) and O'Reilly Media, Inc., co-producers of Web 2.0 Expo, today announced the lineup of keynotes scheduled to appear at the upcoming Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 -- a list that includes Marc Andreessen, Max Levchin and Johnathan Schwartz, and many others. Web 2.0 Expo is the global annual gathering of developers, designers, marketers, and business professionals building the next generation Web, taking place April 22-25, 2008 at Moscone West. Registration is now open at: http://www.web2expo.com/sf.

"For Web 2.0 Expo, keynotes are an opportunity for conversations with some of the most intriguing figures in the industry, visionary talks representing the best thinking on the future of the internet, and some great brain candy in the form of cool data visualizations," said Jennifer Pahlka, Web 2.0 Expo Co-Chair. "We're also looking forward to some interesting announcements from the Web 2.0 Expo stage."

Here's some of who will be in the spotlight:

Marc Andreessen is a well renowned Silicon Valley investor, co-author of Mosaic and co-founder of Ning, company which provides a platform for social-networking Web sites, as well as co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. Previously, Andreessen was the chair of Opsware, a software company he founded originally as Loudcloud, acquired by Hewlett-Packard.

Max Levchin is the visionary behind Slide, the largest social software company in the world and co-founder of PayPal. Before starting Slide, Levchin was an integral player in several other start-ups, including Yelp, where he sits as Chairman of the Board today.

Charlene Li is an analyst at Forrester Research and a driving force behind Forrester's Social Computing and Web 2.0 research, and examines how companies can use technologies like blogs, social networking, RSS, tagging, and widgets for marketing purposes.

Jonathan Schwartz is chief executive officer and president of Sun Microsystems. A leader behind many of Sun's open source and standard setting initiatives, Schwartz has been an outspoken advocate for the network as a utility outside of computing -- for driving economic, social and political progress.

Mitchell Baker is the Chairman of the Mozilla Foundation and Chairman and former Chief Executive Officer of the Mozilla Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation that coordinates development of the open source Mozilla Internet applications, including the Mozilla Firefox web browser and the Mozilla Thunderbird email client.

Clay Shirky is an adjunct Professor at New York University's (NYU) graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and author of "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations."

Jonathan Zittrain is the chair for Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University, director and founder of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and the author of "The Future of the Internet-And How to Stop It."

Aristotle Balogh is Chief Technology Officer at Yahoo!. He is responsible for company-wide product development which includes optimizing resources, speeding innovation, and ensuring the quality of Yahoo!'s products and services. He is focused on establishing a common architecture and building blocks to drive development aligned with corporate strategy and on improving the overall effectiveness of Yahoo!'s engineering efforts.

Edwin Aoki is a technology fellow at AOL, previously working at Apple Computer, Go Corporation, and Intuit before joining Netscape Communications in 1996. Holding a joint degree in Computer Science and Sociology from Harvard College, Aoki believes strongly in the ability of technology to bring people closer together and to make our lives easier.

Dan Lyons is a senior editor at Forbes and the author of The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. In the persona of Fake Steve, Lyons authored "Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs," a novel, and two previous works of fiction, a novel and a collection of short stories. Lyons joined Forbes in 1998 and before that wrote for various computer trade publications including CRN and VARBUSINESS.

Ofer Shaked is chief architect for Current TV, a global media company founded by Al Gore, heading up their Internet presence team. Prior to joining Current TV, Ofer headed up the Social Search business for Yahoo Inc., co-founded and was CTO for FareChase Inc., was technology group leader for Tecnomatix and started his career in the prestigious ATUDA program, leading development of real time data mining technology for the Israeli Intelligence Corps.

Matt Cutts joined Google as a software engineer in January 2000 and heads up the Webspam team. Cutts wrote SafeSearch, which is Google's family filter, previously holding top-secret clearance while working for the Department of Defense.

A forum for creativity, engineering, and innovation, Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco includes a multi-track conference, an "unconference" program called Web2Open, major tradeshow, and many networking events. Web 2.0 Expo welcomes industry leaders that are participating and exhibiting in this year's show including Diamond sponsor Etelos, IBM, Microsoft; Platinum sponsors Adobe, Cynergy, Nokia, Springnote, and WebEx; Gold sponsors AOL, Citrix, Coghead, Disney, EffectiveUI, F5, HCL, Intuit/Quickbase, Oracle, S60, Spinscape, Sun, Symphoniq, Tele Atlas, and Vidoop; Silver sponsors Amazon, Atlassian, Awareness, Broadsoft, Curl, Denodo, Dixero, Force10, Inpowr, Intel, JackBe, Jaduka, Jive, Juniper, Kapow, Keynote, Leverage Software, Liquid Apps, Lithium Technologies, LongJump, Morfik, Mzinga, Octopz, ONEsite, OpSource, Panther Express, Profy, Real Time Content, Rearden, Remy Corporation, Reply, Spigit, StreamVerse, StrikeIron, xbo, and Znakit!.

To learn more about the 2008 Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco and for attendee registration information, visit: http://www.web2expo.com/sf

To apply for a media pass, visit: http://en.oreilly.com/webexsf2008/public/content/media

To read the O'Reilly Radar, visit: http://radar.oreilly.com/

If you have ideas about areas you'd like to see included at the conference, send a note to: webexpo-idea@oreilly.com

If you'd like to stay up to date on information relating to Web 2.0, sign up for the conference newsletter: http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/nl/home#conferences

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