Planet Semantico

Here is a quick update on Calais developer events as well as new discounts on conferences where the Calais team will be presenting in the weeks ahead.  We hope to see you there, so let us know if you can make it! 

NOTE: The MIT EmTech '08 conference is next week, so act now to get your discounted OpenCalais community rate.

1. MIT's EmTech '08 - September 23 - 25, Cambridge, MA (with Calais developer luncheon on 9/25)
2. The European Semantic Technology Conference (ESTC2008) - September 24-26, Vienna, Austria
3. The Web 3.0 Conference - October 16-17, Santa Clara, CA
4. 7th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2008) - October 26-30, Karlsruhe, Germany
5. The Defrag Conference - November 5-6, Denver, CO
6. Mashup Camp - November 17-19, Mountain View, CA

DETAILS AND DISCOUNTS:

MIT's EmTech '08 - September 23 - 25, Cambridge, MA

The Calais team will be out in force at the Emerging Technologies Conference @ MIT, with a booth, a developer luncheon and discounted pricing for members of the OpenCalais community.

The luncheon takes place Thursday, September 25th from 12:30 - 1:50 p.m. ET.  Tom will share "Five Easy Ways to Add Value with Calais" to provide developers with helpful tips and ideas to kick-start their efforts.

Visit the OpenCalais community discounts page from MIT to register.  Discounted options include attending the entire conference, coming for one day, or coming for just the Calais developer luncheon. 

The European Semantic Technology Conference (ESTC2008) - September 24-26, Vienna, Austria

Barak Pridor, CEO, ClearForest, a Thomson Reuters company and creator of the Calais Web service, speaks at EXTC2008 in Vienna on Thursday, September 25th.

Barak co-presents the keynote address that day, Extraction and resolution capabilities for entities, events and facts, along with Peter Jackson, Chief Scientist for the Thomson Reuters Professional division.

The Web 3.0 Conference - October 16-17, Santa Clara, CA

Calais lead Tom Tague will be speaking on the Semantic Startup 101 - Successes, challenges and strategic decisions panel along with Powerset's Mark Johnson and others.

The Web 3.0 conference organizers has offered a $100 discount to Calais fans and OpenCalais community members, which you can secure by using the code SPKGF08 when you register.

7th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2008) - October 26-30, Karlsruhe, Germany

Michal Findkelstein-Landau, Calais' Director of Content Strategy, will provide an overview of the Calais Web service, including technical elements, current applications and insight on how to add value with Calais today.

The Defrag Conference - November 5-6, Denver, CO

Calais is a Defrag silver sponsor and Tom Tague is also speaking alongside Yahoo! Search's Amit Kumar and Siderean's Bradley Allen in the Next Level Discovery panel on Tuesday the 4th.

Mashup Camp - November 17-19, Mountain View, CA 

Calais is a sponsor of Mashup Camp and will be hosting a speed geeking table.  We will be competing in the 'Best Solution Provider Tool' competition, and are working on a Calais mashup developer contest of our own (stay tuned for details).

Registration for Mashup Camp is free if you don't mind sharing your email with sponsors, or you can pay a nominal fee to avoid doing so.  Either way, save your space in advance.

English Amit Kumar, Austria, Barak Pridor, Bradley Allen, Calais, Cambridge, ClearForest, Denver, Emerging Technologies, European Semantic Technology, Germany, Karlsruhe, Mark Johnson, Mashup Camp, Massachusetts, Michal Findkelstein-Landau, MIT, Mountain View, Peter Jackson, Santa Clara, Thomson Reuters, Tom Tague, USD, Vienna, Web Conference, web service, Yahoo

The Calais team is heading to some great events this fall, including the Defrag Conference in Denver, Colorado, Nov. 3 - 4, 2008.

Time Sensitive Defrag Discount: The Defrag gang has kindly offered a special discount for the OpenCalais community.

The discounted rate -- $100 off the early bird registration fee (so $895.00) -- is only available through the end of this month.   

Sign-up this week if you want to get the best price.  You can register here by entering our discount code, "tr1" (t r and the number one).

What is Defrag all about?  Data!

Producer Eric Norlin says, "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 'aha' moment."

We will have a booth there to share demos, and Calais lead Tom Tague will be speaking on the 'Next-level Discovery'  panel alongside Amit Kumar of Yahoo! Search.

Hope to see you there!

English Amit Kumar, Colorado, Denver, Eric Norlin, online data, Tom Tague, USD, Yahoo

Last week I was at the Semantic tech conference in San Jose. It was an exciting event that exceeded my expectations in many ways. First of all, the conference had a really great vibe. People from different parts of the planet converged to talk about their work and passion - Semantic Web.

From the conversations during lunch to keynotes there was a fluid exchange of intelligent ideas; people genuinely interested in the space and focusing on understanding how semantic technologies benefit us today and where they are headed. There was a consensus that many technologies are nearly ready or ready for prime time and that 2008 is the first year when semantic web is coming out of the stealth mode.

To get a flavor of the conversations and topics covered during this conference, I suggest that you review the 4 posts that I’ve written on ReadWriteWeb:

• Taking Semantic Technology to the Masses
• Investor Opportunities and Pitfalls
• The Story of SearchMonkey
• Freebase: An overview

In addition to these 4 posts, I’ve also written a post on Semantic Search. I highly recommend this post to you as well, it is a result of a lot struggle to crystallize in my mind what is going on in that space.

Finally, as with any great conference, it was a pleasure to meet up people that you work with remotely. I had a great pleasure of talking to Paul Miller, Tom Tague and Greg Boutin from Semantic Web Gang. We’ve done several podcasts together and it was great to see people behind voices and avatars :)

I also had an opportunity to speak on the Rising Stars of Semantic Web panel along with Barney Pell, CEO/CTO Powerset, Nova Spivack CEO of Radar Networks, Ian David CTO of Talis and Tom Grueber from stealth company. Both during the panel and the press conference that followed up, I kept on thinking about incredible amount of energy and brain power and enthusiasm that these folks bring to the space. In my book passion is the #1 recipe for success, so I was excited about the prospects of the space at large and what each of these individual companies is going to contribute.

For additional coverage of the conference, please see excellent round up by Daniela Barbosa.

English Barney Pell, Daniela Barbosa, energy, Greg Boutin, how semantic technologies, Ian David, Nova Spivack, Paul Miller, Radar Networks, San Jose, semantic technologies, Semantic Web, Taking Semantic Technology, Talis, Tom Grueber, Tom Tague, Web Gang, Web Panel