Whenever people ask what I'm excited about in technology these days, I sheepishly answer "mobile location". Somehow it feels like it isn't edgy enough or it doesn't have the multiple word power of something like "mobile social photo sharing," but it sure feels like the future to me.
Next week, I won't be alone as the Where 2.0 conference - in its 7th year - brings the best and brightest in location technologies to San Francisco. I got a chance to speak with Brady Forrest, co-chair for the conference, about what we could expect this year.
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When Where 2.0 launched in 2005, explained Forrest, the location industry was all about mapping and geo data suddenly becoming successful.A short time after the event, Google launched Google Maps and the big question in location technologies became how to get a user's location.
"Now, getting a user's location is just plumbing," said Forrest. "The next wave is about context and what's happening around the user."
According to Forrest, the hot topics at this year's Where 2.0 are going to be crowdsourcing, context and open places, with proximity edging its way in as the trend to keep an eye on in 2011. If you do a quick run-through of the panels at this year's three-day-long location-centric event, indeed these words pop up all over the place.
First, it was about maps and accessing data. Next, it was offering information around that data. Now, it's offering information around that data but also around ideas like "known strangers" - such as the person your ride the bus with, or eat at the same restaurant as, three times a week. Through proximity, apps will begin to offer a new layer of context, and thereby a new layer of interpersonal interaction.
"The wave right now is context - 'How do I tell people more about themselves?'" explained Forrester. But what's next? "Proximity is the next thing," he said, citing companies like Color, NeuAer and Foursquare.
Color approaches context through gathering location data and quickly pairing nearby users. NeuAer deals with proximity according to wifi or bluetooth signals and allows users to create predetermined responses - such as dropping a pin on a Google Map when they turn off their bluetooth enabled car. Foursquare, on the other hand, still has the check-in to work with and can deal with proximity by way of willing users intentionally submitting their location as they go about their day.
If you're attending Where 2.0 next week, this is where I plan on being - there's a good smattering of events in there for you location fiends and I hope to find some good stories to bring back to you. In the meantime, let us know - what gets you excited in the mobile location space?
Our young friends at the Teens In Tech Conference this year have all the blessings and foibles of their tender years.
They haven't learned that the sky is not, in fact, the limit - and for god's sake, don't tell them. And, like we likely felt at their age, they feel the adults are the slowest, dumbest, IE-using, fax-sending nerds imaginable. Check out this video of these great kids and the adults who admire and are inspired by them - including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who stopped by the conference to mingle with the youth and sign a few MacBooks.
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Be sure to check out our Facebook album of pics from the Teens In Tech Conference, held yesterday at the Google offices in San Francisco. You'll get to see Robert Scoble in action and Steve "The Woz" Wozinak in a giant space helmet. And if you haven't done so yet, please connect with us on Facebook while you're there!
While the Kodak Theater in Hollywood typically plays host to actual celebrities at the annual Academy Awards, last week's 140 Characters Conference in Hollywood brought together a different set of notable names: the Twitterati. Jeff Pulver's first event in a series taking place around the world drew together entertainment folks, journalists, poker players and even police chiefs, all talking about how they use Twitter to spread information, market themselves and connect with a new audience.
In some ways, it's a miracle that anyone had a face-to-face conversation at the event, which was organized as a quick-fix series of 15-minute panels, what with everyone firmly looking down, typing and texting away to record the two-day event in real time.
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But I'll play along. In the spirit of the event, here are a few of my favorite 140 characters from the day:
This guest post was written by Laura Hertzfeld.
From Access Hollywood's Billy Bush (@billybush), who warned against tweeting and driving and drunk tweeting (dweeting?):
There was something of a Kumbaya feeling among the Twitterati. Conference founder Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver) summed it up:
Thank you to everyone who is part of my twitter mornings. Thanks to YOU, I have a daily reminder of humanity and serendipity.
And in this crowd, you didn't have to be George Clooney to get outed as a celeb, as conference-goer @ciaobella50 gave her take on some of presenters:
Celebs I met yesterday.. @billybush...(hottie),,,Pres of CNN (amazing)...Arianna Huffington (brilliant) ..Annie Duke (Sweet)
@eriksundelof shared a smart train of thought upon seeing Arianna Huffington's panel on the future of news:
Arianna seems to be talking about community funded models at the LA 140 conf. Both Allvoices and Spot.Us are great models here. #140conf
Fitting for the location, here is the response of AMC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff (@amcnews) to Gawker's Richard Rushfield on how covering the Oscar nominations has changed.
#140conf @richardrushfield: Death, Oscar noms "typical thing is get reactions." Now everyone tweets feelings so job is chasing social media.
And how can you not love a conference where someone says, "I can haz cheezburger" with a straight face? Here's the video of Cheezburger Network CEO Scott Porad conveying his words of wisdom on social media:
Next up for Pulver is London on November 17th and New York City on June 16th and 17th.
Guest author: Laura Hertzfeld is a freelance journalist based in Los Angeles. In addition to writing for ReadWriteWeb, she is managing editor of EconomyStory.org, a Public Radio Exchange (PRX) project aggregating public media coverage of the economy.
On the third and final day of the ninth annual Gnomedex conference in Seattle, Washington, the tired but ever-ready members of the ReadWriteWeb gang convened to dish some dirt about the apps, hardware, speakers, and fellow attendees they'd seen over the weekend.
Immediately after filming the roundtable, the crew dispersed for coffee and/or a quick game of werewolf with MakerBot's Bre Pettis, each according to the dictates of his own conscience. We hope to see one another again very soon!
As always, many thanks to Chris Pirillo for organizing another fantastic, inspiring show.
Here are a few photos by the talented, San Francisco-based Kenneth Yeung of www.thelettertwo.com. You can see more of his Gnomedex photos here.
When the open source convention OSCON decided to move from Portland, Oregon to San Jose last year, the open source citizens of Portland set about developing their own "conference for developers working with open source technologies and for people interested in learning the open source way". And since Portland is a hub of the open source community, an army of volunteers and organizers were able to put together its own three day conference called Open Source Bridge. With its focus on open source citizenship, its innovative track structure for sessions, an all-night hacker lounge and peer-produced conference software, Open Source Bridge was not only a success, but plans are already underway for next year's conference.
"We're planning a conference that will connect developers across projects, across languages, across backgrounds to learn from each other. We want people to experience something beyond "how to use tool X" or "why databases keel over when you do Y" (even though those topics are important, making up our tools and trade, and will be a central part of the conference content). We'd like to share what open source means to us, what it offers, where we struggle, and why we do this day in and day out, even when we're not paid for it.
In order to do that, it seemed important to bridge the kinds of roles we have in open source, user/contributor/owner/institution, getting down to something more fundamental. What else are people who interact in this multi-directional way? Perhaps we're citizens. Not residents--we do more than live here. We are, like citizens of a country, engaged in the practice of an interlocking set of rights and responsibilities."
It seems that there are plenty of good open source citizens in Portland. Organizers formed a non-profit organization and the call went out to find volunteers. Citizens responded immediately and there was even support from the city government. Overall, "thousands of hours went into creating this event, all unpaid. Several people who contributed were new to open source development...and made a huge impact anyway".
The Conference
One of the biggest goals of Open Source Bridge was to bring some interactivity and collaboration to its sessions to allow attendees to engage closely with one another. One way it accomplished this was to set up an innovative "track structure" for its sessions. Sessions were "technology agnostic, based around shared community experiences and focus on the similarities between projects, not the differences" and featured tracks split into five areas, business, chemistry, cooking, culture and hacks. This is a great way to structure conference sessions and did indeed promote interactivity and collaboration.
A big surprise (and a welcome change) at this open source event was the fact that there were over 20 women who either led conference sessions, spoke or played other significant roles, including co-founders Audrey Eschright and Selena Deckelmann. Notable participants include Sarah Sharp of Intel, Maria Webster (a.k.a. Ubergeeke) and Rikki Kite, Managing Editor of Linux Magazine.
A highlight of the conference was when Portland Mayor Sam Adams opened the second day with a keynote address, vowing the city will one day be a "hub of open source". Adams says, "bottom line: the city government has unnecessarily been closed in proprietary software and has been a laggard in using open source software". Portland wants to join Vancouver, BC as a completely open city.
As the sessions at Open Source Bridge were winding down each day, the fun was just beginning. In a room high atop the Hilton Hotel in downtown Portland there was the 24-hour hacker lounge, a dedicated space for "code sprints, bug bashes, bouncing ideas, starting new projects or just mingling and taking in the vibe". On the last night of the conference there was a special Beer & Blog gathering for attendees and an open source-themed taping of local tech podcast sensation Strange Love Live.
Although it might not replace OSCON for some people, it's clear that this conference was a huge success and will continue to grow and find its place among open source enthusiasts. There were over 500 attendees from around the world, including a delegation from the Korean Software Industry Association. The only negative thing we could find was a lack of enough electrical outlets for people's laptops. We have been assured that organizers are working on the problem and next year's attendees will have plenty of power available. Everyone we spoke with said this was a worthwhile event and will be looking forward to next year's conference. We applaud the efforts of all the organizers, volunteers and open source citizens that made Open Source Bridge possible. Be sure to check out the conference Attendee Wiki for more details and contributed session notes. You can also search the Twitter hashtags #osb09 and #osbridge for a blow-by-blow account of the week's events.
Our young friends at the 
While the Kodak Theater in Hollywood typically plays host to actual celebrities at the annual Academy Awards, last week's 140 Characters Conference in Hollywood brought together a different set of notable names: the Twitterati. Jeff Pulver's first event in a series taking place around the world drew together entertainment folks, journalists, poker players and even police chiefs, all talking about how they use Twitter to spread information, market themselves and connect with a new audience.
On the third and final day of the ninth annual 
When the open source convention