Supernova 2007: because technology is everyone's business

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Stalking the Supernova speakers (part 2 of 3)

The middle of the alphabet appears to have more people who write more frequently, if the Supernova speakers list is any indication, because today’s post took twice as long to compile as part 1 thanks to the prolificacy of some of the people on it.

• Robert Scoble admits to the Miami Herald that he spends “almost every minute of the waking day thinking about [his] blog.” No surprise, then, that he’s posted 89 items in the month of May, on subjects ranging from rumored (and now debunked) Windows Vista delays, the gulf between geeks and advertising types, doing a Paddy Brown, HD’s effects on Discovery, his 100-site blogroll, Microsoft marketing mistakes, how his son got booted from Second Life, and how lack of podcasting support will hurt Windows Media 11. And that’s just the stuff he’s been writing. The links back are equally prolific; if I don’t move on he’ll have another five posts up before I’ve finished my one.

• Chris Sacca is speaking (maybe even right this moment) at the Red Herring 2006 conference going on in Monterey, California. He also gives conference organizers some badge layout advice, and spots more evidence of a housing bubble.

• Philip Rosedale attended and keynoted SDForum’s mixed-reality “Virtual Worlds—The Rules of Engagement” conference, won a Wired Rave Award (category: business), fended Second Life from denial-of-service attacks, and cut a check funding a student project designed to transform virtual objects into real ones.

• Greg Richardson‘s Civitium continues to steer the deployment of municipal WiFi (TechConnect) in San Francisco.

• Vivek Ranadivé joined “Chairman’s Committee” of the Computerworld Honors Program, where he’ll help that organization recognize companies that “have leveraged technology for the betterment of society.”

• Sean Park can’t help but point out that we’re another step closer to the fiction of AmazonBay. He also spotlights the underbanked, questions IT spending in the Securities and Investment Industry, and follows developments in the area of weather derivative contracts.

• Beth Simone Noveck‘s been designing a peer-to-peer patent system for the USPTO, and wondering whether the cutting edge of virtual worlds is getting dull.

• Craig Newmark debated “net neutrality” with former White House spokesman Mike McCurry in the Wall Street Journal, is nominated to have his name affixed to UCSD’s sixth (currently nameless) college, agreed to speak at the Innovative Marketing Conference next month, hopes to develop a community journalism initiative, has his eponymous company named “one of the 50 content companies that matter,” is profiled by the Times Online, and is thanked for prohibiting animal sales on behalf of animal shelters and rescue groups across the Bay Area.

• Om Malik writes about building a bullet-proof startup, watches the Vonage IPO, monitors the YouTube clone invasion, dissects the “free calls” initiative from Skype, kenoted Mesh (Canada’s Web 2.0 conference), jumps on the Web 2.0 hand-wringing, and covers the launch of Doppelganger, a virtual world with MySpacey aspirations.

• Rebecca MacKinnon attended We Media Global Forum (summary: bloggers vs. journalists… again), attended Beyond Broadcast 2006, warns us not to trust our phone companies (that whole NSA debacle), and challenged Skype to respond to Chinese censorship accusations (Skype passes the buck).

Tomorrow, I’ll finish up the rest of the confirmed speakers list.