The Nick Denton Interview: The Failure of Comments
The internet was supposed to allow media outlets not only to display the talent of their writers -- but to capture the intelligence of the audience. Remember that rhetoric? We've abandoned it; the most that publishers can claim is that their comments are not quite as bad as the competition's. Trolls and spammers are not the problem. They can be dealt with by brute-force moderation. The real tragedy: the triumph of mediocrity. People with time on their hands drown out more valuable contributors. We've all designed discussion systems with the most avid commenters in mind. We've given them stars and moderating powers and allowed them to develop cliques and a sense of ownership that shades into entitlement. They are not the only readers. They are not even the smartest of our readers. If we're truly to capture the intelligence of the audience, we need to design for the most intelligent of the audience.
- The Nick Denton Interview: The Failure of Comments
Presenters: Anil Dash, Founder, Activate; Nick Denton, Publisher, Gawker Media
Artist: Andrew Federman - The internet was supposed to allow media outlets not only to display the talent of their writers -- but to capture the intelligence of the audience. Remember that rhetoric? We've abandoned it; the most that publishers can claim is that their comments are not quite as bad as the competition's. Trolls and spammers are not the problem. They can be dealt with by brute-force moderation. The real tragedy: the triumph of mediocrity. People with time on their hands drown out more valuable contributors. We've all designed discussion systems with the most avid commenters in mind. We've given them stars and moderating powers and allowed them to develop cliques and a sense of ownership that shades into entitlement. They are not the only readers. They are not even the smartest of our readers. If we're truly to capture the intelligence of the audience, we need to design for the most intelligent of the audience.
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Meet chef, author & television personality Anthony Bourdain and the crew behind the award-winning series Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, who help Tony oversee the show’s social media presence.
Tony and his trusted sidekicks will discuss how he utilizes social media —Twitter, Facebook, blogs, et al. — to directly communicate his unique and unfiltered P.O.V. to fans of the show, and to the world at large.
We’ll also look at how social media and the digital audience is changing the overall game for TV, and how it directly impacts both the show and how Tony converses with his audience.
From ‘LiveTwatting’ wrap parties on the road (read: shots of toilets abroad) to propagating food porn online to live-streaming a pub crawl — all is fair game as we present an unprecedented & uncensored behind-the-scenes access to No Reservations.
This panel also includes a Q&A with Tony and crew -- and as always with Tony, nothing is off-limits.Illustration2012 -
Ever thought about launching your startup with some influencer star power? What exactly do "advisors" do (and not do)? It takes more than a pretty face to pin point a truly smart advisor partnership. The right fit requires on-brand positioning for both the advisor and the start up, which can be harder than it sounds. Once you find that fit, building a mutually beneficial relationship that aligns both party's interests is well worth the hustle it takes to make it happen. Find out how to stand apart from the pack that's courting your ideal high-profile partner. Also learn how equity deals can be structured in the most compelling way, and how to get that "in" to catch the star's attention.Illustration2012 -
Join Code for America founder Jennifer Pahlka for a very inspirational keynote address and learn how your geek skills can transform the world for the better.Illustration2012 -
This solo presentation from the founder / CEO of the Austin-based company Stratfor (as well as the author of the best-selling books "The Next 100 Years," "The Next Decade" and "The Future of War") will cover "Pseudo-togetherness" caused by social media and the true lack of solidarity. Friedman's talk will cover our current transition to spending more time speaking to more people (but with less substance), plus future of the human race transcending technology. Using examples with online dating vs the old ways of meeting people, this brilliant thinker will also discuss what society loses in our continuing embrace technology in the context of how we lost body language with the telephone.Illustration2012 -
Turntable.fm came from out of nowhere to become the most addictive new music service. The success of the service shows how we are entering a stage where owning music as an individual is less important than playing it together as a community. Artists are embracing the service as a way to connect directly with their best fans in a live synchronous environment; Talib Kweli, Diplo, ?uestlove, Manchester Orchestra and Ra Ra Riot have all been seen spinning tracks.
In this fireside chat, we will discuss the evolution of and vision for turntable- how can users, artists, agents, managers, labels and advertisers all participate in and benefit from this social music experience.Illustration2012 -
As digital music consumption continues to increase, artists and consumers are finding new ways to engage within the digital landscape. Spotify, the leading digital music service, is helping to driving this digital conversation by providing a music discovery and sharing platform which caters to the modern, social consumer, supporting the artist as a engagement tool, and driving increasing revenues back into the music industry. In a fireside chat, Ken Parks, Spotify's Chief Content Officer & U.S. Managing Director and David Draiman, lead singer of Disturbed, will address the future of the music industry and where Spotify and the artist fit into this conversation.Illustration2012 -
Sean Parker PresentationIllustration2012 -
From broadband spectrum to HDTV, from gaming to Hollywood and social media, innovation is happening through industry, entrepreneurs and technology advances. How is consumer electronics driving innovation in the U.S. and abroad – and what role does design play in consumer electronics innovation? Come hear from the head of an organization that represents 2,000 technology companies and produces the International CES Conference – in conversation with a CE innovation and design leader.Illustration2012 -
Designers of all kinds are key players in the game of change that so typifies the opening decades of the 21st century. Called on to imagine, build, guide, demystify, explain, provoke, enable and inspire, game designers deal daily in the currency of transformation—of places, practices, and perspectives. Play is a key strategy in developing a design practice that is agile enough to entertain a constant need for transformative thinking but substantive enough to throw its strategic weight around when needed. This talk will delve into a set of tasty truisms gleaned from professional game designers about what happens to play when approached from the perspective of learning. What they have to say will both surprise and inform.Illustration2012 -
The Internet is delivering its next tectonic shift upon society - disruption of the global labor markets. There are 7 billion people in the world, but only 2 billion people on the Internet. The other 5 billion are connecting now, at double and triple digit rates. Remarkably, they live today on around a day or less. The first thing they are looking to do when they connect is raise their standard of living- by finding a job online. This is the vanguard of an economic revolution that is sweeping emerging economies and the developing world. Find out from Matt Barrie, CEO of the world's largest outsourcing marketplace, what this means for society, business and how you live your personal life. Discover how a new entrepreneurial class is arising on both sides of the world as both developing and developed world small business owners serendipitously work together, and find out how YOU can transform YOUR business into a virtual multinational corporation on a shoe string budget!Illustration2012 -
As social and Internet entrepreneurs search for ways to effect IRL social change by using online tools and platforms, the focus has been on social media. However, while social media has been the Internet's buzzword for some time now, research shows that content consumption actually represents 53% of all time spent online. Given that content takes up most consumers' time on the web, it's time to harness it as the most effective way to drive social change in the real world.Illustration2012 -
Legendary visionary Ray Kurzweil will join writer Lev Grossman from TIME Magazine for a mind-expanding keynote conversation about our future.Illustration2012 -
A conversation between Nicholas Thompson, a senior editor covering technology for the New Yorker, and computing pioneer Jaron Lanier. They'll discuss the virtues of technology, but also the ways it has made us less imaginative, more distracted, and less connected to other people. Lanier is one of the founders of "virtual reality," but he has since become the most prominent critic of what technology has wrought. Last year, he published “You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto,” a provocative critique of digital technologies, including Wikipedia (which he called a triumph of “intellectual mob rule”) and social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, which Lanier has described as dehumanizing and designed to encourage shallow interactions.Illustration2012 -
One of the great failures of any company - for that matter of a capitalist economy - is ecosystem failure. Great companies build great ecosystems, one in which value is created not just for a single company or group of industry players, but for partners who didn't even exist when the product or service was introduced. Many companies start out creating huge value. Consider Microsoft, whose vision of a computer on every desk and in every home changed the world of computing forever, and created a rich ecosystem for developers. But as Microsoft's growth stalled, they gradually consumed more and more of the opportunity for themselves, and innovators moved elsewhere, to the Internet. Internet innovators like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter have also created a rich ecosystem of opportunity, but like Microsoft before them, they are leaving less and less on the table for others. This is a bad trend. Wall Street firms, which got their start trading on behalf of clients, then began trading against them, then created vast Ponzi economies to drain the value from entire segments of the economy are even more dire examples of this trend. But this crisis of capitalism goes beyond individual industry segments. For example, the race by companies to eliminate labor costs has been a short term profit win but a long term loss. Since the cycle of capitalism depends on consumers as well as producers, and consumers are less and less able to find employment, at some point, we're going to have to start thinking about how to put people to work, rather than how to put them out of work. At O'Reilly, we've always tried to live by the slogan "Create more value than you capture." It's a great way to build a sustainable business and a sustainable economy.
Andrew McAfee, author of "Race Against the Machine," will engage with Tim about these ideas, and about how rethinking the economy becomes even more urgent in the face of the trend he explores in his book, in which jobs are being outsourced not just to low-wage countries, but increasingly to machines.Illustration2012 -
In order to thrive online as individuals -- and for the health of the online commons -- we need to understand literacies of attention, crap detection, participation, collaboration, and network awareness. I believe that the critical uncertainty about the future value of the Web depends on whether a sufficient proportion of the population learns these skills. So I've written a book that I want to be well-received by the knowledgeable and given as a gift to the less knowledgeable. Slated for March 2012 publication by MIT Press, I plan to launch the book at SXSWi.Illustration2012 -
Dean Kamen is a prolific inventor who has been compared to Edison for his contributions to humanity. Perhaps best known for inventing the Segway, Dean has also invented ground breaking medical technologies that benefit lives around the world; from drug pumps to revolutionary wheelchairs, to the “Luke” robotic arm and pioneering inventions in energy and water. In this session, Dean will provide an inside view into the innovations that have driven his success. You'll also learn about FIRST – Dean’s global program designed to experientially engage and inspire the next generation of young technology innovators. Finally, Dean will discuss the responsibilities and opportunities that exist for innovators in all fields (developers, designers, engineers, technologists, inventors and business leaders) to use their gifts to benefit mankind. Sponsored by IEEE.Illustration2012 -
New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson discusses her vision for the future of The Times in the digital age in a session moderated by Texas Tribune editor Evan Smith. Does Abramson's leadership at The Times present a blueprint for sustainability for the newspaper industry?Illustration2012 -
Emily Pilloton is a designer and builder, disguised as a high school teacher. In this session, she will tell the story of Studio H, a high school design/build curriculum based in Bertie County, North Carolina, the poorest, most sparsely populated and racially divided county in the state. In one year, her students design and construct a full-scale piece of architecture for their hometown (last year, a 2000-square foot farmers market, along with 3 public chicken coops). This session will make the case for bringing back new, design-infused models of vocational learning as a means to engage students in hand-to-mind creativity, and real-world progress in their own backyards.Illustration2012 -
As Freeman Dyson said, “There is a great satisfaction in building good tools for other people to use.” It’s hard to communicate this motivation to a new generation of entrepreneurs. There are so many conferences these days, so many voluble, charismatic leaders, and so much noise. Lots of entrepreneurs in their 20s are knowledgeable about the valuations various Y Combinator startups have attained, know the names of all the angel investors in the Valley, have in-depth knowledge of the Facebook diaspora and their doings, have opinions on various Zynga acquisitions, and know exactly how to get Andrew Mason on the line…it boggles the mind. These are good things to have in your tool kit. But let’s talk about the things out there that that people love. About loving the things they’re building. If we’re talking about inspiration, let’s look at the stuff people actually make. The people who make things should be our leaders. Most of the time we don’t know their names. Sometimes we’re lucky and do. So, to hell with all that noise. It’s just a big mass of envy, chatter and FOMO. Let’s get excited and make things.Illustration2012 -
When money flows frictionlessly, good things happen. Good things for small businesses. Good things for consumers. Good things for the economy as a whole. The game layer and the mobile payments space are on a crash course, and it's going to be awesome. So awesome that it’ll force credit card interchange rates to zero and pump 50 billion dollars a year back into the economy. Sounds crazy, but before Al Gore invented the internet, we never imagined information would flow so freely. As soon as the friction was removed from information-transfer, a new economy emerged that changed the way we do business. The same is about to happen with money. It's just another medium of information, and it's high time to suck the friction out of the economy. There are two elements driving this transition to interchange zero 1) the technology that’s driving fees down (along with some far-reaching legislation thanks to Dick Durbin) and 2) the information inherent in payments that’s being leveraged to drive revenues up. Join Seth Priebatsch, Chief Ninja of SCVNGR + LevelUp for a fast-paced session on how a combination of mobile payment startups (even the ones being formed by big companies), The Durbin Amendment, and a tipping point in consumer behavior will completely change the way we think about money -- maybe even re-wire how our economy works.Illustration2012 -
UX designer Amber Case will share insights from her research in cyborg anthropology and talk about what really makes us human.Illustration2012 -
Stephen Wolfram is a distinguished scientist and inventor who is most recently known for the launch of the computational knowledge engine Wolfram|Alpha. Along with the computational software system Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha has put into action some concepts Wolfram has been developing throughout his remarkable career, most notably documented in his book A New Kind of Science (NKS).
Wolfram uses his approach to tackle a remarkable array of fundamental problems in science and technology, and shows how computation offers a whole new way of looking at the operation of our universe. He believes that computation is the most important idea that has emerged in the past century and that it will have profound implications on our future.
Each one of Wolfram's accomplishments is representative of his vision of computation. Stephen's life work is based on the idea that computation empowers the individual to discover facts and concepts that have never been explored before, with emerging platforms making computation more accessible than ever. His goal at SXSW is to inspire attendees to explore new corners of the computational universe.Illustration2012 -
During this session, Steve Case, one of America’s most iconic entrepreneurs, and Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and co-founder of LivingSocial, will explore the role entrepreneurship plays in launching some of the world’s fastest growing businesses. As LivingSocial’s first investor, Steve (and his investment firm, Revolution) was one of the earliest believers in the transformative power of local commerce. Tim will share his experience working with early investors and building one of today’s most promising new companies, as well as his vision for how LivingSocial is poised to bring local commerce to a new level. And looking more broadly, Steve will talk about his efforts to support entrepreneurs through his investments at Revolution, as chair of the Startup America Partnership and a member of the President’, and what we can all do to tap into “America’s secret sauce” to ensure that the US continues to be a leader in innovation and growth.Illustration2012 -
Catch Me If You Can: Frank Abagnale 10 Years LaterIllustration2012 -
The brainchild of actor Rainn Wilson (Dwight from NBC's The Office), SoulPancake is a movement to "Chew on Life's Big Questions" and tackle art, philosophy, creativity, and spirituality across multiple platforms. SoulPancake offers thought-provoking content and creative engagement opportunities to help people explore what it means to be human. Now, with more than 1 million page views a month, SoulPancake's website has crossed over into multiple platforms, from print to television to video and "real world" interactions. Wilson will offer the audience a thoughtful, funny look at how art and creativity can be explored in all forms of media. He'll share some of the challenges of building an online community; developing creative content; and the interactivity and social networking that fuels it all. Please note: Rainn will not be serving pancakes, but he does encourage the audience to bring and enjoy their own stacks of flapjacks.Illustration2012 -
Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—fast. Diamandis will address how progress in artificial intelligence, robotics, infinite computing, ubiquitous broadband networks, digital manufacturing, nanomaterials, synthetic biology, and many other exponentially growing technologies will enable us to make greater gains in the next two decades than we have in the previous two hundred years. We will soon have the ability to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. Diamandis explores how four emerging forces—exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion—are conspiring to solve our biggest problems.Illustration2012 -
It's easy to get caught up with the horse races of Facebook versus Google or Microsoft versus Apple or record labels versus the Internet. But in nearly 30 years of covering technology I find that the major conflicts are those of philosophy, politics and power. You could almost view the past few decades as a spectacular cycle of fantasy novels with the Hacker Spirit as the protagonist and amazing supporting characters including Steve Jobs, Richard Stallman, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Stephen Wolfram, Whitfield Diffie, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg (all of whom I've spent considerable time interviewing.) And as our lives are more intertwined with the giant digital shift, these conflicts are ever more vital. Here's an attempt to deconstruct a revolution--and point to what's ahead.Illustration2012 -
The term "social media" is quickly becoming obsolete. The social graph is moving from our computers into the real world, and soon everything we experience will be overlaid with the thoughts and feelings of our friends. Early adopters are already starting to experience this phenomenon. For instance, foursquare alerts you when you're near places that your friends like, and provides you with suggestions from your friends on what to experience at those places. Other companies are attempting to create this type of engagement with television shows ("10 of your friends are watching!") and music. In this session, Dennis Crowley, Co-founder and CEO of foursquare, will have a conversation about how mobile technology is accelerating the social graph's move into the offline world, and how services like foursquare are taking this kind of augmented real-world exploration mainstream.Illustration2012 -
Links are the molecular bonds of our web sites, holding all the pages together. They are the essence of a web site. Yet, what do we really know about them? If you create great links, your users easily find everything they need on your site. If you do a poor job, your users will find your site impossible or frustrating. We never discuss what truly makes a good link good. Until now. Jared will show you the latest thinking behind the art and science of making great links. Join him for this entertaining and amusing look at the secret lives of our site's links.Illustration2012 -
Politically-active, technology-loving comedian Baratunde Thurston will spark a thought-provoking discussion about the role of technology, comedy and satire in transforming the world around us.Illustration2012 -
Chip Conley is the founder and was the CEO of America's second largest boutique hotel company. Initially, he thought he needed to be superhuman to be successful, but after two dozen years as CEO, he realized that he just needed to be a super human to create the habitat for success that arose at Joie de Vivre Hospitality. Using iconic psychology theories from Abraham Maslow (PEAK) and Viktor Frankl (Emotional Equations), Chip wrote a couple of best-selling books dedicated to helping business leaders understand how to be more emotionally intelligent in the workplace. Using a series of equations he's created with psychologist and mathematicians, Chip will help you understand the emotional building blocks that create anxiety, disappointment, joy, authenticity, and wisdom. Perfect for anyone wanting to understand themselves, their fellow employees, and their customers.Illustration2012 -
”Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match, find me a find, catch me a catch…”,lyrics from Fiddler on the Roof about finding a perfect partner. Wouldn’t it be great if you could have someone to guide you towards what is a match for you, advise you in your career life, help you weed through the losers to find the fabulous ‘one’ that will make you whistle on your way to work AND whistle on the way home?
In Hunt or Be Hunted - How to get the Design Job you Really Want, you will be privy to the insights and success stories of three of the industry’s most respected representatives in their knowledge domains. You will also hear from a leading expert in the placement of designers. Each will relate real-world experience, guiding audience members through the maze of questions a designer has in this frenetic job market.
Who are you as a designer? What do you want to do, and how do you know it's the right thing. What's your story? How to present yourself, your portfolio, and where you want to be. Where should you be full time or freelance? What that means to your life, your career and how you are viewed. When is it right? To look, to change, to know if this is the one. How do you get there? Choosing the right company, assessing/selling to what they need, closing the deal. Don’t be left in the dark. Don’t make blind decisions. Be informed, be guided, then be sure. Listen to these respected resources to help yourself to, “…find me the perfect match.”Illustration2012 -
Renowned entrepreneur and investor Reid Hoffman and entrepreneur/author Ben Casnocha present a new blueprint for managing your career. You will learn the best practices of some of the most successful start-ups on the planet (like PayPal and LinkedIn), and how these strategies can be applied to your career -- no matter your industry or job function. You will learn how to launch career plans amid uncertainty; how to change jobs based on what you learn; how to generate breakout opportunities; how to take intelligent risks; how to develop real relationships and build an effective professional network. Most of all, you will learn how to *think* like an entrepreneur when steering the start-up that is your career. Newark mayor Cory Booker called The Start-Up of You "profound." Jack Dorsey said it "distills the key techniques needed to succeed." Come find out how to be the entrepreneur of your own life, and take control of your professional future.Illustration2012 -
Bravo’s interactive late-night talk show, “Watch What Happens Live,” is coming to SXSW. Meet the on and off-screen digital mavens, including the show’s host Andy Cohen, Tom Colicchio (“Top Chef” judge), Lisa Hsia, Aimee Viles and Dave Serwatka. In Cohen’s SXSW Clubhouse, these visionaries will illustrate how “Top Chef 9” brought multi-platform storytelling beyond the linear screen. When Bravo embarked on their transmedia mission in the fall of 2011, they broke new ground with digital innovations and fostered a unique two-way fan/cast relationship. Dive deep with Bravo into their latest industry first and learn the return on investment for the network and for the fan. Through this soup-to-nuts presentation, discover why transmedia is the future of the entertainment industry.Illustration2012 -
Moments of joy... moments of happiness... moments of gratitude. These are all moments that describe our lives. It is very easy to mistake these as only moments that happen in real life. One fundamental key part of how the web has evolved has involved emotion. Emotion has become more explicit in our actions online. Companies are faster becoming aware that, as obvious as it may seem, humans are at the receiving end of the UI and design theme that you have just created. We no longer simply engage in actions; we "like". We contribute content and are immediately validated through social interactions. What is obvious is that there's another person we're interacting with. What's even more obvious is what we're supposed to feel. In this digital era, there's a field of science that has been largely underutilized until now: affective science. In our work at Kiip, we have realized just how core the "happiness moment" is to our business model. Just how raw emotion can be directly tied to an achievement in a game - we have designed not only a UI but a "emotive" experience around harnessing the elements of the happiness that surrounds a simple interaction. Do you want to share? Do you want to gift? Do you want to save it? Is it fleeting? How can you control it? How do you have more of it later? In this session we'll hear, for the first time, from companies in the mobile and web space that have harnessed not only emotional power - but pressure - to drive their business models all using the currency of happiness. Not only have some of them accidentally created models that capture this emotion beautifully, but some of them have now learned how to sustain it. Happiness is the missing resource in your company. Learn how to capture it.Illustration2012 -
In 2009, a mild traumatic brain injury changed the way that game designer Jane McGonigal thought about everything -- literally. She spent a year recovering -- struggling to think clearly, be physically active, and find a new sense of purpose. Her journey back to health led her to invent a new form of game design, aimed at having a measurable positive impact on players' real lives, and fused with scientific research at every level. In this talk, you'll see the first results of that process: a game called SuperBetter. You'll hear about the game's first clinical trials, and get a crash course in getting SuperBetter yourself: Find out how to turn weak social ties into allies. Learn how to experience "gain without pain" (or what scientists call "post-ecstatic growth"). Discover the secrets of "Lazy Exercise" and "Ninja Weight Loss". Find out what a two-minute "Future Boost" is, and why it's the most important thing you can do each week for your physical and mental health. From the mind of a game designer comes a radically disruptive model for integrating breakthrough science into our daily lives.Illustration2012 -
The Lean Startup debuted at #2 on the New York Times bestseller list. This talk draws on stories and insights from the book, explaining the new science of entrepreneurship. Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counterintuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.Illustration2012 -
Bing Gordon knows how to spread magic dust: Look anywhere from Amazon to Zynga. A master of disruption, he's blessed with 20/20 vision into all things gaming and social. Go beyond the buzzwords as the former Electronic Arts executive, legendary video game pioneer, investor in online social gaming company Zynga, and partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers sits down with Bloomberg BusinessWeek reporter Brad Stone to help us understand how both trends are changing the way people engage, behave and consume. Bing explores why gamification and socialization have moved into the mainstream - and into our bloodstream. He explains how these concepts and strategies are relevant to just about everyone, from entrepreneurs to marketing professionals to musicians and students. Bing also discusses how game and social design principles are used to heighten the "wow" quotient in products, services and change consumer experience.Illustration2012 -
Vic Gundotra will participate in a fireside chat with Guy Kawasaki to discuss the Google+ project. Vic will share how the product has grown since the initial launch, some of the lessons learned and the challenges the Google+ team faced along the way.Illustration2012 -
Everybody talks about the “cloud” as if it is a digital savior. A beautiful white fluffy (free) cloud on a blue-sky day. Sounds nice, huh? But what if it’s a storm cloud? Today – there is a mad rush to move pictures, video, and event private data to the cloud. We live in a world today of constant connection. We’re blessed with unlimited access to pervasive communications. We are, in fact, shifting from an era of mere content abundance to an avalanche of undifferentiated data. Our hard drives runneth over. So - you can't blame your self for wanting to move to the cloud. Unlimited space for all your crap - and free. Who wouldn't sign up? Today the noisy web has resulted in the emergence of a handful of private, walled garden webs. A closed web. Will our cloud providers become information overloads? Can we save the web from privatization, and regain control over our data and our identities? Only if we move fast. Before ‘Big Data’ becomes ‘Big Government.’ Find out how digital ‘overload’ can insure power in the human web.Illustration2012 -
The continuing global economic and political crisis should be the wakeup call to the world. We need to rethink and rebuild many of the organizations and institutions that have served us well for decades, even centuries, but are no longer able. Many traditional economic and social pillars of the industrial age have come to the end of their life cycle. Yet, enabled by the digital revolution there is dramatic change occurring everywhere, from Cairo streets to Wall Street, from the lecture halls of our universities to the halls of government. How can we rethink our economy and society for the new age? Don Tapscott is one of the world's leading thinkers about new technology, new media and innovation in business and society. He is the author of 14 widely read books, most recently Macrowikinomics, and was named one of the world’s most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50 in 2011.Illustration2012 -
Imagine an app that could cut saturated fat from your diet. Or one that could cure gingivitis. Well, while technology has had a big role in making us more sedentary, it also has the potential to make us better informed, healthier and even more fit. In fact, patients are banking on this potential, which is why the AppStore offers more than 7,000 health apps for iPhone users alone. In this 60-min SXSW talk, Ina Fried of Dow Jones' All Things Digital sits down with Aetna Chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini to discuss how people are navigating this new landscape by using technology, especially mobile tech, to manage their health and make better health decisions. Already there are apps for testing eyesight, tracking exercise and even helping diabetics manage their glucose levels. Vast online communities complement these mobile apps by letting patients share, inform, and support one another. But what's next? Technology also has the potential to reshape the doctor-patient relationship, transforming it from one characterized by irregular visits to treat illness to true doctor-patient partnerships focused on wellness. And what about online health care records we hear so much about? We used to have a better chance of seeing bigfoot, but today companies like Aetna are making mobile health records a reality. Is this is a privacy breach in the making or are their real benefits to having this info on the go? This session is sponsored by Aetna.Illustration2012