Doc Searls is not only co-author of the Cluetrain manifesto, he also has a big interest in technology -
and a background in advertising. Listen to his reflections at the end of Etech about Attention economy versus Intention economy, how much vendors where going for Web 1.0 kind of advertising, why Google needs to rethink their business model and what Barcamp has to do with Renaissance.

Additional link: The Intention Economy

With ETech over, I caught up with co-hosts Richard Giles and Nicole Simon to talk about the conference, the highs, the lows, and if ETech was a worthwhile experience for them and myself.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

Along with all the programming, API’s and new techniques, oanother item on show at Etech was a fleet of Hydrogen powered cars. I grabbed Richard Giles from TPN’s Gadget Show, to take one of them for a test drive.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

ETech isn’t the only O’Reilly Conference. Coming up in June is Where 2.0, and Nat Torkington is the Program Chair. As well as finding out more about Where 2.0 I look back at ETech with Torkington and the difference it can make.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

The evoloution of video games is nothing to do with processors or memory, but everything to do with the game controller. From the Atari 2600 stick to the Nintendo Revolution controller, Tom Armitage looks at the effects that input has on games, computers, and the world around us.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

Danny O’Brien’s ETech talks are usually barnstormers, and this year was no exception. Programmed at the end of the last day (after all, would you want to follo him?), he took on the topic of Americas Top Ten Tech Lawsuits of the Future. Now working with the EFF, this is a subject close to his heart and his working life, but there’s more to Danny than just the EFF.

Tags: etech, etech 06, EFF.

To find out more about Ning, I spoke to David Sklar, one of the software architects. Ning is a site that allows non-programmers to experiment with Social Software, and also provides a rapid development for that software genre. What’s Ning like to use, and how has the product improved since its launch last year?

Tags: etech, etech 06, Ning.

Update: MP3 link fixed. Thanks Yoz!

Yoz Grahame is the Developer Advocate at Ning.com, and while we touch on that briefly, what I really wanted to talk to Yoz about was his consultant role in the Channel 4 series, ‘The IT Crowd.’ What are some of the secrets of the set?

Tags: etech, etech 06, The IT Crowd

Lee Bryant, the Director of Headshift, has taken a huge number of social tools and techniques and applied them in businesses. How does this shared knowledge between workers, managers and corporate systems change business practices, make workers more involved, and threaten middle managers?

Tags: etech, etech 06.

Joe Gregorio is not only very active in the ATOM space and also member of the Atom workgroup, he also cares a lot about to be secured data in feeds. His proof of concept presentation at Etech “Secure Syndication” brings up interesting questions we try to touch on in this interview.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

Jeff Han is a Consultant at the Department of Computer Science at the New York University and presented this morning the most drooled about gadget of Etech: A multi touch interaction panel which combines ideas of Star Trek with Minority Report.

But in this interview Jeff explains, why this goes far beyond some movie and why he hopes that his kind of research would spring new user interface developments.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

Sxip promises a single online identity, much like the failed MS Passort system, but expcept this one will work. Keith Grenin gives the lowdown on why the system is good for webmasters and users.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

Last.FM is social software, but for your music. It takes the tracks you listen to (eg in iTunes) and collates theseto discover your music tastes, create a personal radio station, and then match you up with people that like what you like.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

George Dyson, a Historian of Technology, provided one of the most illuminating talks at ETech. Entitled “Turing’s Cathedral” it looked at the historical work of Leibniz and Von Neumann in bridging the world of logic and machines, taking the lessons from this, and where technology could lead us into the future. When you’re surrounded by the new applications and ideas at ETech, to have this in a historical content and to see what these prophets foretold of our future.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

Maya Desgin is one of the many Skunk Work houses that helps design and prototype applications and devices. In many cases, they get it, do their business, and then leave no trace when the company launches. That’s where the conversation with Josh started, but we moved into talking about the Web 2.0 contrast between real life and in the programming lab.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

Since FooCamp, one of the underground highlights of any O’Reilly Conference has been the ad-hoc games of Werewolf. This year, the social lynching detective role-playing game was programmed as an evening event. Arthur Bergman (and his Segway) was one of the organisers and can describe so much better than I can, which he does here along with a classic paranoia induced snip for one of the games.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

Tim O’Reilly, the man behind ETech and O’Reilly Media, Inc, took time out between sessions at San Diego to talk about the difference that ETech has made, both in the industry and to people in everyday life. Beyond that, what drives Tim, what keeps him awake at night, and how would he tag himself?

Tags: etech, etech 06.

Bruce Sterling, visionary author of The Hacker Crackdown, was one of the keynote speakers at ETech, talking about “The Internet of Things.” I caught up to ask him what this was, his views on ubbiquitous computing, and pointing out that if you had written all about ETech in 1956 it would have been the greatest SF novel the world would have ever seen.

Tags: etech, etech 06.

The first of our daily shows from the Tech Conf circuit. Coming from the Manchester Grand Hyatt, tonight Nicole Simon and I talk with…

Bill Scott, Yahoo!, ID and Ajax Evangelist.
Kevin Marks, Technorati, Principal Engineer.
Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing, Writer and Commentator.

Peter Morville, co-author of the famous “Information Architecture”, has a session at ETech called “Ambient findability“, named after his latest book.

Nicole Simon interviews him on different ways to think about findability, how Science Fictions inspires him, the internet of objects and what sense it makes when shuttle busses use GPS.

Chris Messina calls himself a “Director of Experience and Open Source Ambassador” and works foe the company Flock.

Nicole Simon talks with him about new features in Flock, microformats, Barcamp, the Renaissance and challenges in relationship 2.0.

Maribeth Beck is presenting a session at ETech on “Reading Rooms, The Designof Immersive Social Media Spaces,” which is a great title for a seminar, because both Nicole and I wanted to find out more about this before the Tech Conference show arrived in San Diego. So Nicole and Maribeth got together…

Links

• Maribeth Back’s Homepage.
• Reading Rooms: The Design of Immersive Social Media Spaces (ETech Session).

Update: Welcome to everyone coming here from the O’Reilly Radar - just to point out that if you’re not at ETech then we have more than just this preview podcast - we’re planning a daily one hour show from each day at ETech, along with a huge number of dedicated 20 minute interview shows. If you dind’t make it to San Diego, or even if you did make it and are scared of missing anything, then hit the RSS feed, which is http://techconf.thepodcastnetwork.com/feed/.
The event that started off the planning Tech Conference schedule was O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference 2006. Having been in both 2004 and 2005, I was always (somehow) going to be at this event. As it turns out, not only am I at the event, but I’ll be bringing as much of the event as possible to everyone who couldn’t make it out for whatever reason.

If you’ve never heard of Etech (as it’s known in shorthand), then this preview is for you. Part of a conference call between a number of reporters, Tim O’Reilly (founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media Inc) and Rael Dornfest (O’Reilly CTO and Program Chair of Etech). It’s a fast and lively conversation covering a huge number of topics, most of which are going to be up for discussion at Etech. Take this 50 minute preview, and imagine the same intensity over 4 days. That’s Etech.

• The Attention Economy: How to cope with more and more information on a daily basis, and the need of many people to get to their rss boxes as much as their email. Using people on the web to drive AI, for example Amazon’s recommendations system that looks at other people’s favourites to give you suggestions. How about using your browser history as an asset in a similar way?
• Will you pay to get less information? A lovely idea is brought up in this, that getting 4 good search results is better than getting 40,000. It’s how you get those four that is key in the new economy.
  Changing attitudes. Maybe ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is the new normal for tech savvy people. In a non-literate society of a few hundred years ago, Tim’s skills would be irrelevant.
• Etech is all about the horizon, and what is coming up. The conference is a great mix of sociology and technology, and by starting the conversations you could end up almost anywhere. Etech spins out a lot of ideas and starting points. A lot of ’stuff’ rises to the surface during the four days and many find their own successful homes.

All your comments about the Tech Conference podcasts are appreciated, and if you want to get involved while you’re at Etech, then drop me an email, ewanspence@gmail.com. And if you want to make sure you’re subscribed, you can subscribe in iTunes, or add the RSS Feed directly to your podcatching client.

Welcome to the first podcast in the March 2006 series. In this show, Nicole and I chat about what we’ve got planned for the upcoming shows. Nicole (www.crueltobekind.org) will be joining me at BarCampLA and O’Reilly’s Etech to help with the coverage. It’s her first Etech (and my third) so what differences in our expectations are there? What are we looking to do with the podcasts? And what, exactly, is the schedule?

Did you believe us when we said “we go so you don’t have to?” Well hold onto your MP3 player, because we’re about to prove it to you, with coverage from….

BarCampLA
March 4-5, Los Angeles, California.

O’Reilly Emerging Technology
March 6-9, San Diego, California.

SXSW Interactive.
March 10-14, Austin, Texas.

Mix06
20th Mar to 22 Mar, Las Vegas

If you’re not yet subscribed, the feed for your podcatching client is techconf.thepodcastnetwork.com/feed. Want to be part of the show from any of these conferences? Then give Ewan a mail… ewanspence@gmail.com.