Keynotes | Web Directions USA

Keynotes

Each day at Web Directions USA begins and ends with a session that will get you thinking about the big picture. Scott Thomas from the New Media team at Obama for America designs online communities that resonate and motivate; John Allsopp leads a host of web heavy weights considering the The Open Web Landscape; Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer tell us there is One Web, One Platform; and Hilary Mason analyses web data.

The Open Web Landscape

Peering over the horizon at the near future of the browser

Presenter: John Allsopp

With IE9 showing support for cutting edge standards like CSS3 and HTML5, as well as long awaited support for SVG, and first class browsing experiences appearing on devices of every shape and size, the days of “best viewed in” are long over. But just what is the current state of the web technology landscape – both browsers and standards, and where are we headed, in the near, and longer term?

Hear what leading implementors and standards developers from companies like Adobe, Microsoft, Opera and Palm, as well as standards organizations like the W3C have to say, to help chart your way forward.

Designing Obama

Creating sites that inspire and connect

Presenter: Scott Thomas

Join Scott Thomas, a lead web designer on President Obama’s electoral campaign, as he explains how to design online communities that resonate and motivate. All too often, discussions of analytics, clickthrough rates, and search engine optimization cloud the important truth that online campaigns and communities are for human beings. Come discover how to use superior design, authentic messaging, and valuable content to deliver resonant messages that connect with your audience through the noise of the Internet.

Banner photo: © Fotomattic.

Paving the Final Frontier

Presenter: Naveed Anwar

Naveed Anwar, senior director of PayPal’s Developer Network, will address the ways our society will deal with money and continue to evolve as we move towards a more digital lifestyle. The future of money will be shaped around consumers’ increasing interaction with the Internet – specifically via mobile devices. Naveed will discuss how the rapid growth of mobile commerce will lead to a significant number of services available within “the cloud”, all of which will be accessible via one’s digital wallet. No longer will we need to carry bulky wallets filled with cash and credit cards around with us; our wallet will live in the cloud and we will be able to pay for goods via our primary mobile device (i.e. your mobile phone, iPad, etc.). At the end of the day, it’s about giving citizens across the globe more direct control over their finances than they have ever had before.

Machine Learning for Web Data

Presenter: Hilary Mason

Many of us create and work with data that lives on the web. This kind of data has similar characteristics that makes it possible to learn successful techniques and avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ for analysis.

In this talk, I’ll give a brief history of the field with a focus on the fundamental math and algorithmic tools that we use to address these kinds of problems, then walk through several descriptive and predictive scenarios. We’ll also discuss the likely future evolution of this type of data and the active research problems that are currently fascinating.

One Web, One Platform

Presenter: Ben Galbraith, Dion Almaer

Mobile devices have breathed new life into the application marketplace, but with the new massive economic opportunity comes a great deal of complexity and confusion. Which mobile platform should developers support? Just Apple? But with Android, Blackberry, webOS, and others all based on radically different software platforms, how does it make economic sense to do more than one mobile platform? The web is everywhere, but can it seriously compete with native software? Let’s chat.

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