Put Web 2.0 in perspective and preview future trends

8:30 a.m., Monday, Dec 4

Lessons and Tips from the Ajax Front Line

Scott Dietzen, Ph.D., President and Chief Technology Officer, Zimbra, Inc.

For two years, Scott Dietzen has been in the trenches of the Ajax movement, helping to develop an innovative new Ajax-based application. As this Web development technique moves into the spotlight, developers have run into a number of issues—from problems with bandwidth, to choosing the best development toolkit, to optimizing Web sites—that they are eager to work out. Scott will talk about what a developer needs to know when setting out to develop a site using Ajax, offering tips and tricks about data compression, toolkits, and optimizing HTML content with Ajax subcomponents, among other things, and showing developers how Ajax can be used to improve messaging and calendaring—among other applications—in Zimbra and elsewhere. Scott will also address some of the emerging technologies and standards such as tagging, wikis, blogs, UM, RSS, iCal, and enterprise mash-ups, which have resulted in a new end user paradigm for information sharing. As user-generated content gains popularity on the Internet and the open source community gains increasing industry influence, communication is shifting dramatically. Scott will look at what's in store for the future of these technologies and the role they will play in influencing the way people collaborate with friends and colleagues worldwide.

Scott Dietzen is widely credited with helping put together the J2EE standard, launching the Web application server category, and launching the Java Community Process (JCP). Prior to Zimbra, Scott was CTO of BEA Systems, where he was the principal architect of the technology strategy for the WebLogic product family. [Full bio]

1:30 p.m., Monday, Dec 4

Enriching Web Applications with Search Capability

Mark Lucovsky, Technical Director, Engineering, Google, Inc.

The Google Ajax Search API is designed to allow applications to easily embed Google Search into their applications. The system supports parallel search across a number of sources including Web search, local search, blog search, video search, news search, and book search. One use of the API is obvious: the simple embedding of an Ajax-style search control on any page, blog, and so on. The API is significantly more powerful than this capability. It is designed to support the modern needs of Web 2.0 applications. In this environment the API is designed to support seamlessly, blending user-generated content with the large body of information that's brought into your applications, using high-quality search. This discussion will focus on the API in modest detail and then walk through a set of scenarios that are made possible by integrating search into the content creation process.

Mark Lucovsky is technical director of engineering at Mountain View, California-based Google Inc. Mark has held this position at Google since November 2004. Before joining Google, Mark was a distinguished engineer at Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corporation. [Full bio]

7:15 a.m., Tuesday, Dec 5

Collaborative Applications — A Real World Example

Breakfast Session, Sponsored by ICESoft

Have you ever had a web conference fail because someone could not get their browser configured properly?  Come to this breakfast session and learn about a new Web-based presentation service that overcomes the thick client woes associated with other web presentation services. WebMC is not only a completely lightweight web application,  it is also completely FREE to use.  Collaborative applications are at the forefront of Web 2.0, and WebMC, based on Ajax Push technology, is a real world example that just might prove useful to you.  We will start by taking you on a tour of WebMC features, and then we will open the hood and examine the Ajax Push technology that make it and other collaborative applications possible.  This session is definitely worth waking up for, even if you spend too long at the Black Jack table the night before.

8:30 a.m., Tuesday, Dec 5

Beyond Web 2.0: Where Ajax and RIA Trends Will Take Us

Jesse James Garrett, Cofounder and Director of User Experience Strategy, Adaptive Path

Having trouble separating hype from reality? Where is the Web really headed? In this presentation, Jesse James Garrett looks at the deeper trends driving the latest innovations in Web development and considers the broader implications for the skill sets that Web teams will need to invest in to successfully leverage emerging Web techniques and technologies.

Jesse James Garrett is cofounder and director of user experience strategy of Adaptive Path, a product strategy firm based in San Francisco. Jesse's tools and concepts have been published in more than a dozen languages and his book The Elements of User Experience is considered one of the seminal works on user-centered design. [Full bio]

1:30 p.m., Tuesday, Dec 5

Building Applications for the New Web

Robert Brewin, Co-CTO, Sun Software, Sun Microsystems

As we move further into the 21st century, the challenges of building the next-generation Web platform increase dramatically. This discussion will concentrate on understanding the rapidly changing landscape and the needs for improved platforms and architectures designed for the evolving Web, as well as the developer requirements and tools needed to build the future Web.

Robert Brewin is a Sun distinguished engineer and co-CTO of Sun Software. He is responsible for developer products and application platforms, which include the Java platform, mobility, enterprise software and business integration products. [Full bio]