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Posts Tagged ‘Pitfalls’

Cloud Religion: Do’s, Do Not’s, and a Glimpse of Nirvana

As the cloud is getting more players and interfaces, best and worst practices are emerging. As the market grows and more companies try to plug in, the cloud may benefit from guiding principles.

Similar to new technology movements in the past, a natural process is underway to define “what is good”, which, for some in the industry, equates to “what is open”. Like religion itself, open can be defined in ways that are uplifting, or on the other side of the coin, restricting. Also, we learn again, nothing is free.

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Cloud APIs Must Walk on Water

If you’ve been part of a software development project, you know that sometimes it’s hard to get the team to all agree on best practices for interface design, database optimization, or even what technology to use. In this analysis, we take a look at some of the movements in cloud computing that start to lay a framework of good as it relates to this technology.

In this context, API designers for cloud applications need to think ahead and avoid common pitfalls. For several reasons, more than ever before. First, because many people will be accessing your one piece of code. Second, is that in this world of open APIs, it’s easy to compare your code against another.

We notice that data management practices are at the core, and details matter when provisioning in platforms. At the same time that groups are forming to align practices and forms of virtualization and cloud standards, a voice whispers that perhaps this is a free-market problem. People who benefit at solving it, will; others will ignore it or compete directly. We enjoyed this post from Joyent on where standards matter in a practical sense.

In essence, the question raised: If a vendor makes it easy and bakes in the ability to “just do it”, do you know or care about the standards? This seems to mirror an iPhone development paradigm, which is to expect work from the vendor SDK or libraries. The SDK wraps standards implementations, which is done in the way best understood by that vendor.

Do Unto Others as You Would Have Done To You

We know the cloud is big – perhaps it will inevitably be bigger than the Internet itself as it usurps our conception of location, space and time.

Where power forms, rules, groups, and organizations do as well. In information technology there is always tension between open standards and defacto standards. The former are crafted through agreements, the latter through leadership and market dominance.

We asked in a prior series “Will a single company become the dominant provider in the cloud?” Today we look at the more practical side of “who is winning now” – who is setting the rules and who is in the trenches.

Quite a number of the responses to our earlier posts emphasized that “the cloud should be free”, meaning that it should have governing principles to avoid one vendor from owning the landscape.

Here are a few groups that have emerged to provide some context in how this may come together, both philosophically and practically. In both, the devil is in the details. A good summary of some of the current combining of forces is by the Open Grid Forum. (In our opinion, grids have given way to clouds as the dominant concept in this technology makeover).

• A resource directory of initiatives is located at the Cloud Standards Wiki, which in itself was formed by a handful of organizations and movements working to align around setting rules and patterns for cloud computing.
• The Open Cloud Consortium is organized around developing practices around sharing resources and has recently focused on a developing a test bed.
• The DMTF is working at the core definition of virtualization. It recently focused on the 1.1 version of the Open Virtualization Format (OVF) specification that focuses on packaging virtualization instances and creating a portable mechanic distribution by defining envelope and collection parameters around the virtual machine and its services. The organization, which contains members of IBM, Microsoft, Dell, VMware, XENSource, Sun, and NEC, has submitted 1.1 for consideration as an ANSI and ISO standard.
• The efforts by the federal government in its data.gov initiative shows that there’s a market that’s starting to see the value of raw government data formats. Soon, we would expect this to be powered by a mesh of computer resources that allow all sorts of jobs – integrated jobs – to work with these data sets. It would comprise an active government cloud.

Do Not Covet Thy Neighbors Network Resource

When looking for things to avoid, we found a lot of philosophical questions around data ownership, logging and portability. These discussions are alive and well and seem to be being absorbed into vendor solutions and consortiums like the ones mentioned earlier.

For a more practical view, we turned to a friend of ReadWriteWeb, Thorsten von Eicken, and have summarized his thoughts from a recent post, “Top Cloud API Sins. Bold items are our (loose) mapping to biblical terms.

• Do not covet your neighbors resources.: Listing of resources without the details, e.g., a list-servers call that doesn’t return all the details for each server. This makes it very expensive to poll for server state changes …
• Do not make cast idols: Not returning a resource id on creation. Some APIs don’t give you a server i.d. when you request a server…
• Labor six days, rest on the seventh: Providing a task queue. Several APIs I’ve seen have a task queue that is supposed to provide updates on tasks that are in progress E.g., you launch a server and you get a handle onto a task descriptor. For us that’s just overhead…
• Though shall not bear false witness: Not returning deleted resources in a “list resource” call. In particular, terminated servers must be returned in a list servers call for a certain duration, probably at least for an hour. Ouch!…
• Shall not covet his neighbor (or force me to repaginate): Pagination that goes page-wise instead of using a marker, e.g. where you get page one or the first 100 resources and then issue a query for “page 2″ or “from 100 on”. Explain to me how a client can get a consistent resource listing when resources can be added and removed concurrently…
• Randy Bias added to Torsten’s post: Treat others as you want to be treated Your UI MUST use your API so you understand how to be a consumer of your own API…

We plan on keeping up with this list and seeing how it intersects with implementations and standards that evolve.

Nirvana: Smells Like Services Orientation

Torsten goes on to describe a picture of the future. “Now here’s what I’d really like to see. This is what we’re working on for internal purposes and it’s not easy, which is an event based interface instead of a request-reply based interface… ”

Smart services in the cloud, rather than resources alone. This starts to get us closer and closer to an object-orientated network. Maybe that’s what the cloud will be for platforms, infrastructure and software. The industry has been quick to identify the layers. But perhaps the point is piecing them together in a smart transactional framework.

A way to engineer highly reliable systems around these architecture challenges may sound familiar to those who monitor existing data centers today.

Torsten continues, “We run a good number of machines that do nothing but chew up 100% cpu polling EC2 to detect changes. Fortunately cpu cycles are cheap ”.

This is practical intervention between vision and get it done.

We find it refreshing to hear this type of dialog in the industry and see a fresh opportunity for defining efficient patterns for this next generation of the cloud infrastructure.

Perhaps a new concept is forming: “Divine Computing”.

What buying decisions will be based on the openness of cloud resources and common APIs?

Photo credit: tsarkasim, Amsterdam Esogna

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Introduction to The Real-Time Web and its Future

“Recommended.”
-HP Official News

“Very thorough. Exceeded my expectations. Nice work.”
-Henry “Hank” Nothhaft, Jr.
Entrepreneur-in-Residence at SRI

“The report is excellent — a great synthesis of why the real time web is different, what changes, what doesn’t and what the industry needs in order to press forward.”
- John Borthwick
CEO, Betaworks

Those are just a few of the things that people have said about our newly released research report The Real-Time Web and its Future so far. Want to know what’s included in the report? Check out the Table of Contents and the full text of the Introduction below.

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RWWfinalTOC

That’s the Table of Contents and below is the full text of the introduction to the report. We hope you’ll purchase this report via this link – and check out our package deals for purchasing the ReadWriteWeb Guide to Online Community Management as well!

What is The Real-Time Web? Beyond Twitter and Facebook

Dave Winer defines the real-time Web in four words: “It Happens Without Waiting.”1 That’s true, and appropriately vague. The phrase “real-time Web” means different things for different people and it’s too early in the game to have anything but a loose, inclusive definition.

Many of the different forms the real-time Web takes do have some common benefits, user experience elements, lessons learned, pitfalls and possibilities. This is what we explore in this report.

It’s definitely a whole lot more than just Twitter and Facebook, though these are the best known instances of what’s referred to as the real-time Web. Someday Facebook may open up its user data and play a larger role in the real-time Web than just the introduction to the stream model that it plays today. Someday Twitter may grow, discover how to retain users and effectively encourage more than the small number of people who today create the vast majority of content on that service. Today engineers estimate that Twitter sees about 1 thousand messages published per second and between 5 and 10 million links shared per day, before de-duplication. That sounds like a lot, but the real-time Web as a whole is already much, much larger than Twitter.

For infrastructure provider Kaazing, the real-time Web is using HTML5 Web Sockets technology to push live financial information to the Web browsers of banking customers that had always been limited to desktop applications for security reasons.

For consumer web app Pip.io, the real-time Web is creating an XMPP-powered chat-like experience for users to communicate with friends around objects like a Google Map or a streaming Netflix video playing in the Pip.io web OS.

For semantic recommendation company Evri, the real-time Web is the ebbing and flowing of traffic data on Wikipedia. That data points to hot topics that Evri needs to build topic pages to serve their publisher customers.

For search engine OneRiot, the real-time Web is made up of the links people share on Twitter …as well as Digg, Delicious and the click-streams of more than a million users who have opted-in to exposing what they see online through the OneRiot toolbar.

For Q&A service Aardvark, the real-time Web is the people inside the social circle of a user who happens to be available online at a given moment and interested in the topic of a user’s question.

There are hundreds of thousands of blogs that now deliver updated content to any other application that subscribes to a PubSubHubbub or RSSCloud feed, immediately after that content is published. NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen says the real-time Web creates a sense of flow for users that’s comparable to the way television holds our attention.

Google’s Brett Slatkin, developer of the PubSubHubbub real-time protocol, says the real-time Web is a foundation for efficient computing and use cases we can’t yet even imagine.

In writing this report we interviewed 50 people who work on technologies that power or leverage what they consider to be the real-time Web. Those people have had a very diverse array of experiences, but articulate a common story. It’s a story of increased computational efficiency – and software that struggles to keep users from feeling overwhelmed. It’s a story of radically new possibilities but strategies based on adding value in conjunction with more traditional, slower moving online resources.

We hope you enjoy reading this overview of the emerging real-time Web. We believe this phenomenon is one that will play a major role in the Web and world of the future.

The page-based model of destination sites, created by centralized expertise and navigated through authority-based search and clicking link by link is being transcended. We think this survey of current strategies and experiences to date will prove very useful in helping you effectively participate in and help build the future of the real-time Web.

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Rackspace Says it’s Closing the Gap with Amazon

The chief executive of Rackspace says the company has closed the gap with Amazon, gaining significant market share in its cloud computing compared to a year ago.

In an interview with Reuters, Chief Executive Lanham Napier said a year ago Amazon was “incredibly far ahead,” of Rackspace in the cloud computing market. But this year he said Rackspace has closed the gap with Amazon’s web services business.

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Napier did not provide details about the gap nor how much Rackspace has gained on Amazon.

He did say the Rackspace cloud business contributed 10 percent to the company’s revenue in the third quarter. Business for cloud computing services has been growing in excess of 100 percent per year. In the second quarter, the Rackspace cloud business grew 17 percent.

The cloud business does have its pitfalls, in particular in respect to the tight margins that come with offering the service. Napier said those tight margins have been offset by its hosting business. Rackspace provides hosting to large enterprises. Cloud computing services are primarily provided to customers for hosting websites and renting servers that can be scaled up and back down at any time.

But can this scenario continue? Competition is only starting in the cloud computing market. Rackspace competes with other cloud computing providers such as Joyent. Microsoft will soon enter the game.

The key will be in how to add margins to the cloud business. Depending on traditional hosting business may get tricky if more of that business goes to the cloud, too.

Amazon seems to be fighting that battle on a daily basis. They continue to add features but have to respond to market pressures with competitive pricing. The company recently announced it was dropping prices for its EC2 service.

Disclosure: Rackspace is a RWW sponsor.

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Rackspace Says it Is Closing the Gap with Amazon

The chief executive of Rackspace says the company has closed the gap with Amazon, gaining significant market share in its cloud computing compared to a year ago.

In an interview with Reuters, Chief Executive Lanham Napier said a year ago Amazon was “incredibly far ahead,” of Rackspace in the cloud computing market. But this year he said Rackspace has closed the gap with Amazon’s web services business.

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Napier did not provide details about the gap nor how much Rackspace has gained on Amazon.

He did say the Rackspace cloud business contributed 10 percent to the company’s revenue in the third quarter. Business for cloud computing services has been growing in excess of 100 percent per year. In the second quarter, the Rackspace cloud business grew 17 percent.

The cloud business does have its pitfalls, in particular in respect to the tight margins that come with offering the service. Napier said those tight margins have been offset by its hosting business. Rackspace provides hosting to large enterprises. Cloud computing services are primarily provided to customers for hosting websites and renting servers that can be scaled up and back down at any time.

But can this scenario continue? Competition is only starting in the cloud computing market. Rackspace competes with other cloud computing providers such as Joyent. Microsoft will soon enter the game.

The key will be in how to add margins to the cloud business. Depending on traditional hosting business may get tricky if more of that business goes to the cloud, too.

Amazon seems to be fighting that battle on a daily basis. They continue to add features but have to respond to market pressures with competitive pricing. The company recently announced it was dropping prices for its EC2 service.

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ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 10 October 2009

We’ve added a bunch of great events to our guide this week. The one we’re most excited about (of course) is our own ReadWrite Read-Time Web Summit, which takes place this coming Thursday in Mountain View. 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.

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15 October 2009: Mountain View, California

The ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit

Our month of special coverage on the real-time Web culminates with ReadWriteWeb’s very first event: the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit, a day-long event of conversations about the real-time Web, including its current state and its pressing challenges and greatest opportunities.

Topics will include:

• The potential and pitfalls of real-time for social networking, media, financial services, humanitarian work and political advocacy.
• How will ubiquitous real-time information delivery change the web in the future? What will it make possible? How will it change user expectations?
• How can real-time information overload be dealt with, technically and culturally?
• How can small organizations use the real-time web to challenge market incumbents? How can market incumbents continue to thrive in a real-time environment?

Register here.

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22 October 2009: London, England

Cloud Computing World Forum

The Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event for professionals to learn and discuss the future development and integration of cloud services. This one-day conference will provide a focused platform for the global cloud computing industry.

The Cloud Computing World Forum is the place to meet all the key decision makers from all of the cloud service providers in one place. Show highlights include:

• Hear from leading case studies on how to integrate cloud computing into working practices,
• Learn from the key players offering services in the cloud,
• Benefit from pre-show online meeting planner,
• Evening networking reception.

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23 October 2009: Durham, North Carolina

The Social Media Business Forum

The Social Media Business Forum will feature national and local speakers from marketing companies, technology companies, and social networks discussing ways in which business communications have changed because of social media. Sessions will look at internal and external communications methods for both B2B and B2C companies and provide actionable takeaway items for attendees to immediately implement in their businesses. The forum targets business owners, executives, business communicators, key organizational stake holders, and anyone interested in gaining practical knowledge about social media.

Early bird registration is $125 until September 18, and $250 thereafter.

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26 October 2009: London

Media140 London

The need for brand transparency is here. Engage your consumers and share best practices and case studies of social media engagement at Media140. With award-winning speakers from AKQA, Unilever, easyJet, BBH Labs and Innocent Drinks, we explore together what works and how to do it in this burgeoning sector of marketing strategy.

The real-time Web is revolutionizing communication with consumers. By pushing products and services as soon as they become available to market and monitoring direct instant feedback on your promotions you can become head of the game.

Social media tools like Twitter, Flickr and Facebook are disrupting and changing traditional media and advertising. Media140 strives to understand and progress the potential of disruptive real-time social media. Share with us at info@media140.com or @media140.

Go to www.media140.com/brands and use discount code “readwrite” for a £95 ticket.

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27 October 2009: San Francisco

FailCon

FailCon is the first of its kind and will be one of the most relevent events ever designed for entrepreneurs and startups! We’re bringing major founders and investors in the online world to talk about mistakes they’ve made, failures they’ve experienced, what they learned and how they recovered. Topics will include founding team communication, design mishaps, investment mistakes, how not to build a viral app and much more! These talks will leave you inspired and excited to be an entrepreneur today and get you prepared for what lies ahead. More information is at snapsummit.com, and get 15% off your ticket by clicking here.

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28 – 30 October 2009: Amsterdam

eComm Fall

The Emerging Communications Conference & Awards is the world’s leading-edge event, spanning telecom, mobile and Internet-based communications. It’s designed to showcase and accelerate both technology and business model innovation.

There is not a migratory way for telecom operators and media outlets to the future; emergent social practice is increasingly clashing with their very structure and desires. This means unprecedented opportunity for those ahead of the curve. The emerging transformations require big thoughts and big bets. eComm the venue for those thoughts and bets to be shared and heard.

ReadWriteWeb readers save 10% off general admission by using the discount code “READWRITEWEB.”

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29 – 30 October 2009: San Francisco, California

Virtual Goods Summit

The virtual goods market has exploded as developers and publishers dive into this new opportunity. The third annual Virtual Goods Summit in October 2009 will bring together thought leaders in this space from Asia, Europe, and the US to talk about what’s changed and what’s working and the key challenges facing the industry. If you’re active in virtual goods — or thinking of jumping in — the Virtual Goods Summit is a must-attend event.

New for 2009 is VGS University, a half-day seminar designed to provide a comprehensive overview of how to succeed with virtual goods. Hear from experts on topics such as why virtual goods are effective and the ins and outs of managing a virtual economy. Whether you’re new to virtual goods or seeking insights and lessons from the leaders, we encourage you to join us for the day and learn from some of our industry’s leading-edge thinkers.

ReadWriteWeb readers save 15% off general admission by registering here using the discount code “READWRITEWEB.”

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2 – 5 November 2009: San Francisco

Enterprise 2.0 Conference

The Enterprise 2.0 Conference is the largest gathering for people ready to connect teams and harness collective intelligence with social tools and 2.0 technologies. Enterprise 2.0 includes visionary keynotes, informative sessions, case studies and an Expo Pavilion featuring the latest technologies. Register today and save 20% (code: CNGXES07) or get a free Pavilion Pass (code: CNGXES01).

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4 – 5 November 2009: Raleigh, North Carolina

Internet Summit 2009

Internet Summit ‘09 will feature over 75 speakers, including representatives of major Internet brands such as Twitter, Pandora, Google, Salesforce.com, Digg, Technorati, CBS Interactive, Huffington Post, Blogger, Tree.com, and many more.

Topics will include social media, blogging, real time, mobile, video, search, online advertising, e-commerce, analytics, the cloud, and more.

Join over 1200 entrepreneurs, senior marketers, and executives in the conversation about the future of the industry and how to capitalize on the shifting dynamics of the Internet and tap into its unlimited business potential.

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5 – 6 November 2009: Sydney

Media140 Sydney: Future of Journalism in the Social Media age

News broadcasting is evolving. Citizen journalists are coming to the fore, saving lives by tracking brush fires and changing the course of history at elections.

Media140 Sydney addresses the changing face of journalism. Partnered by ABC, we bring together Australia’s leading lights in journalism, broadcasting, blogging and citizen journalism. Are Twitter and the real-time Web truly shaking up traditional media?

Tickets from $165. Register at www.media140.com/sydney using promo code “readwrite” for a 20% discount.

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6 – 8 November 2009: Savannah, Georgia

Geekend 2009

Geekend 2009 is an interactive conference that brings together geeks from all walks of life for three days of cutting edge speakers, expert panels, afterparties, networking and mash-up opportunities. Speaker highlights include Major Nelson of Xbox Live, renowned designer David Carson, Eric Snowden of Atlantic Records, Joey Hasty of Disney, and Matias Corea of Behance, among many others. Get your geek on and enter “RWW” for $30 off the full price weekend badge.

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9 – 10 November 2009: Santa Clara, California

Social Networking World Forum — California

This event taking place at the Santa Clara Convention Center actually consists of three conferences: two days dedicated to social networking, one day dedicated to enterprise social media, and one day dedicated to social TV. Key speakers include social networking publishers, advertising agencies, industry analysts, software developers and equipment manufacturers, pay-TV and network service providers, mobile operators, and more.

• Joint exhibition combining social networking and enterprise social media formats
• Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates
• Discount for early booking (expires September 25th)
• Free pass for exhibition only

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10 – 13 November 2009: Las Vegas

PubCon Vegas

PubCon Las Vegas is a multi-track educational conference hosted by SearchEngineWorld & WebmasterWorld. PubCon events are for thought leaders and professionals in search engine and Internet marketing to gather and to share best practices in the design, development, promotion and marketing of their Internet businesses and brands. PubCon London 2009 is a social networking event.

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11 – 12 November 2009: Denver, Colorado

Defrag 2009 Conference

As online data is growing and fragmenting at an exponential pace, individuals, groups and organizations are struggling to discover, assemble, organize, act on and gather feedback from that data. In the largest sense, we’re all looking to augment the pace at which we achieve insights on raw data — to accelerate the “A-ha” moment.

Defrag explores the intersection of topics like:

• Business intelligence
• Business process management
• Social computing and analytics
• Next-level discovery
• Enterprise 2.0
• Next-gen email
• The semantic Web

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18 – 19 November 2009: San Francisco

VentureBeat presents GreenBeat

VentureBeat, the leading innovation-focused business blog, will host the seminal conference on the smart grid. GreenBeat 2009 brings together the nation’s 500 leading entrepreneurs, investors, utility and technology executives, policymakers and press to accelerate development of a leaner, more efficient electrical grid. With participation by Al Gore, former Vice President and Nobel Prize Winner; John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins; and industry leaders, including from Cisco, Tendril, PG&E, expect lively discussion and power networking. The program will highlight new technologies and explore the opportunities afforded by the stimulus package.

Also, we’ll be looking for the biggest, boldest ideas entrepreneurs have to change the way we think about, build and use the existing grid. To spotlight these ideas, we’re holding an Innovation Competition to find the best disruptors in the business. Early bird registration ends this Saturday, 10 October 2009, so get your tickets now at www.greenbeat2009.com.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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:

1. Social Networking World Forum
2. Enterprise social media
3. Social TV World Forum
4. 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

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Download this entire events calendar in iCal format.

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ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 26 September 2009

Just a reminder: ReadWriteWeb’s own Real-Time Web Summit is only a few weeks away, and some excellent participants are now signed up. You can download the event calendar below 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.

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15 October 2009: Mountain View, California

The ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit

Our month of special coverage on the real-time Web culminates with ReadWriteWeb’s very first event: the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit, a day-long event of conversations about the real-time Web, including its current state and its pressing challenges and greatest opportunities.

Topics will include:

• The potential and pitfalls of real-time for social networking, media, financial services, humanitarian work and political advocacy.
• How will ubiquitous real-time information delivery change the web in the future? What will it make possible? How will it change user expectations?
• How can real-time information overload be dealt with, technically and culturally?
• How can small organizations use the real-time web to challenge market incumbents? How can market incumbents continue to thrive in a real-time environment?

Register here.

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30 September 2009: on Twitter

Twittamentary

Update: Call for submissions of stories and videos is now open. In this documentary, filmmaker Tan Siok Siok peels away the hype and explores the human dimensions of how lives connect and intersect, and then are affected and changed, as result of encounters on Twitter.

Twittamentary is created in the open spirit of the Web. Twitter users are invite to contribute ideas and videos to the film. When the film is completed, it will be released online under a creative commons license. In other words, you are both the contributor and the audience.

The 24-hour storytelling event on 30 September 2009 shares the videos submitted up till then in a round-the-clock marathon in which participants get to watch the videos online, rate and comment on them, and tweet about them.

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2 October 2009: Seattle, Washington

ExpressionEngine Roadshow

The ExpressionEngine Roadshow is a traveling conference designed to bring together experts and users to learn ExpressionEngine techniques and share insider tips. Now in its second year, and second city, the 2009 conference will be a full day event. The show runs from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, with breakfast before, a party after, and lunch in between, all included in the price of admission. Follow @eeroadshow on Twitter for the latest details.

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2 October 2009: New York City

Hadoop World

Facebook, Google, and Yahoo! introduced the world to Hadoop, the open-source technology that simultaneously combines storage and processing for large-scale data. Now, all sorts of companies in a number of different verticals are using Hadoop.

And they’re all going to be in New York City on October 2nd for Hadoop World. All the Hadoop rock stars will be there, including Hadoop project creator Doug Cutting. Amazon, Facebook, IBM, and Yahoo!, to name a few companies, are sponsoring the event. In addition to the above listed, Visa, JPMorganChase, China Mobile, and many others will be giving talks about their use of Hadoop.

ReadWriteWeb readers get 25% off the regular ticket price. Register here.

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8 October 2009: San Diego

Mobile Application Stores conference

As a partner seminar of Intenational CTIA WIRELESS I.T. and Entertainment, the Mobile Application Stores conference will focus on the tremendous opportunities in the mobile apps stores eco-system. The event is designed to give a complete understanding of how to capitalize on this exploding market.

Participants will discuss strategy and deployment in application stores such as Apple (iPhone), Google (Android), RIM (Blackberry), Nokia (Ovi), Palm Pre, and Microsoft, as well as other emerging application stores. To learn more, visit www.mobileapplicationstores.com or write to events@nextvisionmedia.com.

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10 October 2009: Mountain View, California

Juice Pitcher

The Juice Pitcher is shaping up to be the hottest new networking event in the Valley. The exclusive evening gathering on October 10 is being hosted by Vator.tv and TheFunded and will showcase 10 startups, chosen by their peers through votes on the Vator competition platform. Get your favorite companies to join the Juice Pitcher Competition, and don’t forget to vote! Voting is open to anyone, so you can make a difference. In addition, Aaron Patzer, CEO of Mint.com, will speak about how he built a $170 million company in just three years, and Munjal Shah, CEO of Like.com, will talk about best practices and steps to earning revenue.

Click here to buy your tickets and see the agenda.

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22 October 2009: London, England

Cloud Computing World Forum

The Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event for professionals to learn and discuss the future development and integration of cloud services. This one-day conference will provide a focused platform for the global cloud computing industry.

The Cloud Computing World Forum is the place to meet all the key decision makers from all of the cloud service providers in one place. Show highlights include:

• Hear from leading case studies on how to integrate cloud computing into working practices,
• Learn from the key players offering services in the cloud,
• Benefit from pre-show online meeting planner,
• Evening networking reception.

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23 October 2009: Durham, North Carolina

The Social Media Business Forum

The Social Media Business Forum will feature national and local speakers from marketing companies, technology companies, and social networks discussing ways in which business communications have changed because of social media. Sessions will look at internal and external communications methods for both B2B and B2C companies and provide actionable takeaway items for attendees to immediately implement in their businesses. The forum targets business owners, executives, business communicators, key organizational stake holders, and anyone interested in gaining practical knowledge about social media.

Early bird registration is $125 until September 18, and $250 thereafter.

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29 – 30 October 2009: San Francisco, California

Virtual Goods Summit

The virtual goods market has exploded as developers and publishers dive into this new opportunity. The third annual Virtual Goods Summit in October 2009 will bring together thought leaders in this space from Asia, Europe, and the US to talk about what’s changed and what’s working and the key challenges facing the industry. If you’re active in virtual goods — or thinking of jumping in — the Virtual Goods Summit is a must-attend event.

New for 2009 is VGS University, a half-day seminar designed to provide a comprehensive overview of how to succeed with virtual goods. Hear from experts on topics such as why virtual goods are effective and the ins and outs of managing a virtual economy. Whether you’re new to virtual goods or seeking insights and lessons from the leaders, we encourage you to join us for the day and learn from some of our industry’s leading-edge thinkers.

ReadWriteWeb readers save 15% off general admission by registering here using the discount code “READWRITEWEB.”

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4 – 5 November 2009: Raleigh, North Carolina

Internet Summit 2009

Internet Summit ‘09 will feature over 75 speakers, including representatives of major Internet brands such as Twitter, Pandora, Google, Salesforce.com, Digg, Technorati, CBS Interactive, Huffington Post, Blogger, Tree.com, and many more.

Topics will include social media, blogging, real time, mobile, video, search, online advertising, e-commerce, analytics, the cloud, and more.

Join over 1200 entrepreneurs, senior marketers, and executives in the conversation about the future of the industry and how to capitalize on the shifting dynamics of the Internet and tap into its unlimited business potential.

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9 – 10 November 2009: Santa Clara, California

Social Networking World Forum — California

This event taking place at the Santa Clara Convention Center actually consists of three conferences: two days dedicated to social networking, one day dedicated to enterprise social media, and one day dedicated to social TV. Key speakers include social networking publishers, advertising agencies, industry analysts, software developers and equipment manufacturers, pay-TV and network service providers, mobile operators, and more.

• Joint exhibition combining social networking and enterprise social media formats
• Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates
• Discount for early booking (expires September 25th)
• Free pass for exhibition only

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10 – 13 November 2009: Las Vegas

PubCon Vegas

PubCon Las Vegas is a multi-track educational conference hosted by SearchEngineWorld & WebmasterWorld. PubCon events are for thought leaders and professionals in search engine and Internet marketing to gather and to share best practices in the design, development, promotion and marketing of their Internet businesses and brands. PubCon London 2009 is a social networking event.

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11 – 12 November 2009: Denver, Colorado

Defrag 2009 Conference

As online data is growing and fragmenting at an exponential pace, individuals, groups and organizations are struggling to discover, assemble, organize, act on and gather feedback from that data. In the largest sense, we’re all looking to augment the pace at which we achieve insights on raw data — to accelerate the “A-ha” moment.

Defrag explores the intersection of topics like:

• Business intelligence
• Business process management
• Social computing and analytics
• Next-level discovery
• Enterprise 2.0
• Next-gen email
• The semantic Web

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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:

1. Social Networking World Forum
2. Enterprise social media
3. Social TV World Forum
4. 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

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Download this entire events calendar in iCal format.

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To Those About To Demo: How to Deal With Your 15 Minutes of Fame

For the fortunate startups selected to present at any of several large tech conferences this summer and fall, the experience is fraught with excitement, opportunity, and pitfalls in equal measure.

Here’s a round up of words from the wise, including veteran investor Mark Suster on surviving the hype cycle, analyst Sean Power on navigating traffic spikes, entrepreneur Jason Calacanis on how to demo, and our thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of launching a company or product at a conference.

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The Analyst

First of all, be prepared for a high tide of website visitors. “This is an unprecedented influx of attention,” writes Power in a recent blog post. “It may be the single biggest traffic spike you’ll ever experience. Thousands of visitors will drive by your site, stay for a minute, and leave – never to return. After the bump, you’ll feel a tremendous rush of adrenaline, then deep, soul-sucking disillusionment as your traffic dwindles back to its former levels.”

So, how to capitalize on the opportunity and make sure those visitors return? Gather lots of data, track and measure users’ behavior down to the twitch of a mouse, solicit user feedback, and – most importantly – make sure your servers can handle the traffic.

The Entrepreneur

We also saw a string of blog posts from Calacanis on how to demo, how to run a trade show booth, and other handy conference tips. “After doing 2,500 minutes of demos (40 hours) this year and many more last year… I’ve learned a lot about what makes for a great demo and what makes for a horrible demo,” he wrote in this post. “Since demoing your idea is a key to your success as an entrepreneur, I thought I would share everything I know in a few simple bullet points.”

Simply put, Calacanis advises startups to show the product quickly, get the presentation over with in 5 minutes or less, leave audiences wanting more, talk about accomplishments rather than roadmaps, understand the competition, give short answers, and never-but-never use PowerPoint. In part two of his tutorial, he gets into greater detail, such as handling technical issues and choosing the best method for “the setup,” or the first 30 seconds of a presentation.

See that? That’s a tech startup conference spotlight, and it’s coming right at you. Image courtesy of Twiistup founder Mike Macadaan.

The Journalist

As far as media coverage is concerned, launching during a major tech event can be dicey business. Written last year, these words from former RWW blogger Josh Catone still ring true: “Out of necessity, many of the reviews we wrote of the startups launching at those events were half-assed – we were more concerned with covering as much as possible as we were with writing quality critiques of the startups launching. And that wasn’t really our fault: There were just too many startups coming down the pipeline at once.”

He continued to note that search traffic and Techmeme placement for two specific conferences were on a downward trend, and concluded, “Neither seem like they’ll be any better at acquiring users than any other time you could pick to launch (and might be worse, given the increased levels of startup noise during the events).”

On the not-so-off chance that your startup does not become the buzzed-up darling of this year’s tech conference, you must inevitably resort to getting press the old-fashioned way: by emailing your friendly tech blogger/reporter types.

The Investor

Finally, we come to this insightful post from Suster. “Today I want to talk about Kool Aid. Yours. Don’t drink it. I know you’re thinking that you have your head on straight but I promise you the experience of finding yourself in this maelstrom will leave any first time entrepreneur spinning. Fame and adoration corrupts first timers. And if you’re not careful you might start to believe your own hype.”

Suster continues to spin his own tale from the trenches when he launched his first company. The story is replete with funding from Goldman Sachs, press from Time and the Wall Street Journal, and champagne with Bernard Arnault. The trouble was, Suster had sipped his own Kool-Aid. The company had raised too much money, hired too many people, had too many air-castle-construction discussions, and wasted time while reading their own press. His expert advice makes the post worth reading for any startup about to get major attention from press and investors.

And of course, to all those startups about to demo, we salute you.

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My Snow Leopard casualties: what’s not working in 10.6

Filed under: Software, Snow Leopard

Overall, I’m very happy with Snow Leopard, and loving all of the little refinements I keep stumbling upon. However, I want to mention a few pitfalls I ran into with my upgrade, on the off chance that anyone has a similar setup and might benefit from some advance warning, or any of the fixes I’ve found.

Safari & Input Managers

There were a few things we knew to expect (and maybe dread), mostly having to do with 32-bit vs 64-bit processing and compatibility. Input Managers were known casualties. Two of the major victims for me were my 1Password and Evernote plugins in Safari. In 64-bit mode, at least at first, they didn’t show up at all. See the Switcher’s Blog for updates on 1Password and Snow Leopard. The current 3.0 beta of 1Password is working for me in 64-bit, I just have some keyboard shortcut issues to work out. Hopefully the Evernote blog will start offering more updates soon.

In the meantime, there’s a partial fix: if you select the application (Safari) in your Applications folder, go to the File menu and hold down the Option key while selecting Get Info, you’ll get the Inspector panel (also accessible with a simple Command-Option-I). For applications which have 64-bit capabilities (such as Mail and Safari), you’ll see a checkbox to force them to load in 32-bit mode. That gets Evernote working for me, so I’ll run it in 32-bit until things get straightened out. I’ll be keeping an eye on the Glims blog, as well.

Continue reading My Snow Leopard casualties: what’s not working in 10.6

TUAWMy Snow Leopard casualties: what’s not working in 10.6 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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