ETech 2006 to Focus on "Attention Economy"

For Immediate Release
For more information, contact:
Suzanne Axtell (707) 827-7114 or suzanne@oreilly.com

The 2006 O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference
Focuses on the "Attention Economy"

Sebastopol, CA--Today's technical challenges are no longer about
generating digital data--we have more than enough already--but rather,
finding innovative ways to visualize, filter, remix, and access it. The
2006 edition of ETech, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, will
grapple with these issues by highlighting the cutting-edge techniques and
technologies highly prolific geeks employ and invent to make sense of the
immense amount of data now pouring into everyday life. Registration has
just opened for ETech, which will take place March 6-9 at the Manchester
Grand Hyatt in San Diego, California.

ETech's focus on the "Attention Economy"--a new order of tools and
services to help us sort through the flood of digital data--is gaining
traction throughout all levels of the computing industry. Conference
program chair Rael Dornfest and his committee received a record number of
speaking proposals, one indication of just how critical the issue of
attenuation of data is to the alpha geek community. The preliminary
schedule includes plenary presentations, on-stage conversations, sessions,
and tutorials with:

-Eric Von Hippel, MIT Sloan School of Management
-Linda Stone, former Microsoft VP
-Jon Udell, InfoWorld
-Bruce Sterling, author
-Caterina Fake, Yahoo!/Flickr
-Jeffrey Veen, Adaptive Path
-Dick Hardt, Sxip
-Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users
-Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Media
-Richard Kilmer, InfoEther
-Alex Russell, JotSpot
-Michael Jefferson, NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program
-Danah Boyd, University of California, Berkeley
-Mark Pilgrim, IBM
-Jason Schultz, Electronic Frontier Foundation
-Eric Bonabeau, Icosystem
-Amy Jo Kim, game designer
-Nick Ludlum, Promise.tv
-Charles Armstrong, Trampoline Systems

Dornfest and the conference team are planning a number of mind-opening
activities during the event. Back by popular demand is the Maker Fest, an
amazing, hands-on, science fair style demonstration of DIY projects by and
for geeks. In addition, the eBay Developers Challenge has just been
announced; winners of the contest will participate at ETech. Several
sponsors have already lined up to take part at ETech, including: IBM, MSN
Search, Nokia, eBay Developers Program, Sxip, Taskport, Macromedia, Nokia,
Mapquest, and Zimbra.

We're inundated with technologies for creating, aggregating, and
distributing data--the next important breakthroughs will be the tools that
serve as the gatekeepers of our attention. As Jon Udell puts it, "Devices
are on or off. Channels are open or closed. The vast middle ground between
those two states remains largely unexplored." That middle ground is where
we're unleashing the collective intelligence of ETech 2006.

ETech participants include technologists, CTOs, chief scientists,
researchers, programmers, hackers, business developers, entrepreneurs, and
other interested parties. Last year's ETech hosted a standing-room-only
crowd, and it's anticipated that the 2006 edition will also reach
capacity. Media passes will be available on a limited basis only.

The O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference features a range of
technologies that are growing just below the horizon of commercial
viability, placing a spotlight on the projects, people, and business
models likely to become very important to the future of internet
computing. From peer-to-peer networks, person-to-person mobile messaging,
web services, and weblogs to big screen digital media, small screen mobile
gaming, hardware hacking, and content remixing, ETech pries open the
transformative new technologies destined to show up in the products and
services we're all taking for granted in the not-too-distant future.

O'Reilly conferences include: the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference
(ETel); OSCON, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention; the O'Reilly European
Open Source Convention (EuroOSCON); the MySQL Users Conference,
co-presented with MySQL AB; Where 2.0 Conference; and Web 2.0 (co-hosted
by Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle, and co-produced with MediaLive
International). O'Reilly conferences bring together forward-thinking
business and technology leaders shaping ideas and influencing industries
around the globe. For over 25 years, O'Reilly has facilitated the adoption
of new and important technologies by the enterprise, putting emerging
technologies on the map.

Additional Information:

For complete details on ETech sessions, speakers, and activities, visit:
http://conferences.oreilly.com/etech

For eBay Developers Challenge details,
visit:
http://ebay.promotionexpert.com/devchallenge2006/splash.html

For news articles, blogs, announcements, and photos (available for use
with attribution) from ETech 2005, see:
http://www.oreillynet.com/et2005/

To hear ETech 2005 plenary presentations, visit IT Conversations at:
http://www.itconversations.com/series/etech2005.html

For information on exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at O'Reilly
conferences, contact Andrew Calvo at (707) 827-7176 or
andrewc@oreilly.com.

To become a media sponsor at O'Reilly conferences, contact Margi Levin at
(707) 827-7184 or margi@oreilly.com.

Other upcoming O'Reilly conferences (http://conferences.oreilly.com):

-O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference, January 24-26, 2006 in
 Burlingame, California
-MySQL Users Conference, April 24-27 in Santa Clara, California
-Where 2.0, June 2006 date to be announced in the San Francisco Bay Area
-O'Reilly Open Source Convention, July 24-28 in Portland, Oregon
-O'Reilly European Open Source Convention, early fall 2006
-Web 2.0, fall 2006 in the San Francisco Bay Area

About O'Reilly
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books,
online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly has been
a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, homing in on the
technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by
amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the
future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has
a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism. For more
information: http://www.oreilly.com

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