Sebastopol, CA--The O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference brings together the people, projects, and issues building the new technological foundations and creating value in the location industry. The Where 2.0 call for participation is now open and the program committee is seeking speakers to debate and discuss what's viable in the location space now, and what's lurking just below the radar. Where 2.0 takes place May 29-30, 2007 at the Fairmont in San Jose, California. Proposals are due no later than January 5, 2007; registration opens in February 2007.
O'Reilly Media is now accepting proposals from people interested in leading the charge into the location frontier: GIS veterans, technology evangelists, developers and hackers, neogeographers, CxOs, business developers, entrepreneurs, activists, and artists. Where 2.0 is a two-day, single-track conference featuring a unique combination of high profile keynotes with established players, lightning talks, panel discussions, demos, high order bits, the Where Fair, and much more.
"The thrust of the program for the 2007 conference will answer the question, 'Where's the value?' Every lasting fantastic technical innovation has built value around it, and the new world of networked geographic tools follows the same rule," notes program chair Brady Forrest. "We'll be looking at the latest Where 2.0 technology, businesses, and content with an emphasis on these questions: How can developers make money at this? What applications have legs? How can enterprises make money using this?"
Some of the technologies and transformations on the program committee's radar include:
Local search and advertising is driving this new wave of innovation, but the models aren't set yet. What are the new trends? What are companies going to do to get a piece of the local advertising market? How will this impact mobile applications?
All of the major players have started adding the ability to mod their sites' maps, evidence that there is a desire from users to geotag their data in order to use it elsewhere. Formats are still being decided. Who will end up with the best data? Who will own it? Will users be able to take it with them? What effect will GeoDRM have?
There is always more data to be collected, even if it hasn't been formally released. Who has rights to this data? What about pubic GIS data? Every country has it own policies and restrictions, how will and should they change as the need for it increases
The open source GIS stack rivals the proprietary one. What are the new advances in the open source stack? Where are they pushing the GIS software companies?
Cheap sensors are become ubiquitous and increasingly web-based. Right now they are being used to track traffic, give out speeding tickets, detect the weather, and turn on the music in our homes. Where is this technology going and how will it affect our lives?
Bluetooth, WiFi... these are the ingredients of ultra-local applications. It seems like users would want them but they haven't taken off yet. Is the killer app around the corner or is this never going to truly take off?
Location-based services are increasingly being added to mobile phones. What will the next innovations be and where will they come from? Handset manufacturers? Carriers? Or a startup that outflanks both?
Visualization: Tools like Google Earth, Sketchup, Frappr, and Spaceland have turned us all into voyeurs and neogeographers. What are the advances in this area?
With greater access to location and sensor data comes greater concern for privacy. How are companies preparing for this? How will society react?
Maps can be used to convey powerful messages and forecast potential doom. Geodata and software will be needed through out the world by governments and NGOs. What are they doing with it right now and what will be needed in the future?
Now in it's third year, the O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference is where the grassroots and leading edge developers building location aware technology intersect with the businesses and entrepreneurs seeking out location apps, platforms, and hardware to gain a competitive edge. In the O'Reilly conference tradition, Where 2.0 presents leading trends rather than chasing them. There's no better place to meet the people behind the mash-ups, the people behind the platforms, and the people looking ahead to the future of geospatial.
For complete conference details, visit: http://conferences.oreilly.com/where
Read the Where conference blog for the latest event announcements and news: http://www.oreillynet.com/conferences/blog/where_20/
For an overview of this space, read The State of Where 2.0 (PDF) co-written by program chair Brady Forrest.
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