Nearly 50 companies have presented over the past two days at Jason Calcanis' LAUNCH conference. We've seen everything from well-established companies like StackOverflow launch a job-finder service for its existing members to companies sign $100,000 deals on stage.
Now, it has come to an end and, like most things, a winner (or 13) has to be declared. Here's who came out on top.
The RootsTech conference has challenged developers to mashup social media and family history APIs in the hopes that developers will recognize genealogy as rich area for exploitation.
Here's the challenge: use any open social media API, like from Flickr or Facebook, mash it up with any of the APIs from the five genealogy companies that offer them to create something which "demonstrates increased value to family historians."
I spoke with Jay Verkler, the CEO of FamilySearch International, in the Oak Room of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. We spoke about the future of technology in the practice of genealogy, an activity with a distinctly old-school reputation.
Verkler is not your average genealogist (whatever that is). His background is not spending sleepless nights knee-deep in 18th century census records. He's a graduate of MIT and spent most of his career in Silicon Valley, at companies including Oracle, Sales.com and push technology company inCommon, which he founded.
The conference attendees crowded the hall of the Salt Palace to listen to a librarian who specializes in genealogy talk about online tools like the Internet Archive, Flickr and StoryCorps. There was hardly a seat free in a hall that held several thousand. Par for the course for a tech conference. So far.
What sets this conference apart is the average age, which can't have been below sixty, and the nature of the listeners, the overwhelming majority of whom are not developers or tech marketers, but genealogists.
How big is social media these days? Big enough to get its own week. This week is Social Media Week, if you hadn't heard, and its taking place in nine cities across the globe. It's a week-long extravaganza of free (or cheap) talks, roundtables, panels, happy hours and other events and we thought we would take a look and give our top five, must-attend events of the week.
Social Media Week is already in full swing, so if you're just getting started now, you've already missed out on a few must-see events, but there's still several days left, so fret not.
We're always on the lookout for upcoming Web tech events from around world. Know of something taking place that should appear here? Want to get your event included in the calendar? Let us know in the comments below or email us.
We're always on the lookout for upcoming Web tech events from around world. Know of something taking place that should appear here? Want to get your event included in the calendar? Let us know in the comments below or email us.
We're always on the lookout for upcoming Web tech events from around world. Know of something taking place that should appear here? Want to get your event included in the calendar? Let us know in the comments below or email us.
We're always on the lookout for upcoming Web tech events from around world. Know of something taking place that should appear here? Want to get your event included in the calendar? Let us know in the comments below or email us.
We're always on the lookout for upcoming Web tech events from around world. Know of something taking place that should appear here? Want to get your event included in the calendar? Let us know in the comments below or email us.
