Deductible Junkets
Networking Networks
Anti-atavistic advertising
Web advertising is now an US$80 million-dollar-a-year market, and @d:tech.97 provides meatspace for companies clamoring for even more online revenue. Unlike traditional media that broadcast a blaring brand identity, interactive technologies can - and should - mesh entertainment with service, support, and full-blown applications. Online advertising is more than business as usual."Customers will get what they want," says Poppe Tyson executive David Carlick. "And increasingly, they want Web sites that don't just show them a product but let them buy it and provide ongoing support. In computer markets, you'll see services literally become product extensions. Interactive users want quick response and relevant answers. Advertisers want targeting, interactivity, and relevance."
Direct feedback, demographic details, and accountability distinguish interactive media from their one-way broadcast ancestors. Furthermore, technologies such as intelligent agents, dynamic databases, and ecash promise advertisers a cornucopia of personalized content, boundless information, and real-time transactions. Webonomics clearly bears little resemblance to traditional business models. To help us understand this new topography, @d:tech.97 unites adventurous admen and prominent webheads, including @Home's Milo Medin, Firefly's Saul Klein, and Organic Online's Jonathan Nelson.
Another speaker is Forrester Research analyst Mary Modahl, whose recent studies on Web revenue indicate that the greater accountability offered by online advertising will engender a brutal digital Darwinism - while successful content providers will deliver an audience, the rest will perish. Click your way to Chicago and hone your survival skills for the brave Web world of the 21st century.
Registration: US$1,095 through March 7, $1,195 after. Contact: (800) 535 1812, +1 (804) 643 8375, email skip@ad-tech.com, on the Web at www.ad-tech.com/.
Back to the Future in Chicago
Before the ad banner-site sponsorship debate, a battle raged between those who thought Ovaltine was the drink of the 21st century and those who believed Tang to be the taste of the future. This struggle is just a sample of the nostalgic collection of programming available at the Windy City's Museum of Broadcast Communications. After perusing the archives, reserve a spot in the Kraft Telecenter to anchor your own newscast. Or, open Fibber McGee's closet and set foot in Jack Benny's vault in the Radio Hall of Fame.
Escape back to the future at the Museum of Science and Industry. Check out the Omnimax film highlighting the science of Indy Car racing. Or discover the Communications Zone, an exhibit that explores the impact of information technology on our lives.
The museum's Working Options exhibit presents the office of tomorrow - that mythical day when all of your activities will be integrated into your PC. Perhaps these same computers will launch an IBM-Orbitz joint sponsorship that finally replaces coffee as the morning beverage of choice.
Anne Speedie
The Current Roundup (see Wired 5.01)February 24-28 Financial Cryptography 1997; Anguilla, British West Indies.
March 1-2 Convergence and Diversity: Pacific Asia in the 2020s; Wellington, New Zealand.
March 3-5 ACM97: The Next 50 Years of Computing; San Jose, California.
March 7-16 SXSW; Austin, Texas.
March 11-14 The Seventh Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy; Burlingame, California.
March 16-18 . Telemedicine and Distributed Medical Intelligence Conference; Vail, Colorado . Medical intelligence isn't just about acing Anatomy 101 anymore. Join world-renowned MDs Dave Warner and Robert Corona for an illuminating discourse on virtual reality in medicine, Web technologies in medical consultation, and the different models for telemedicine that can be used to treat patients in their homes, overseas, and across networks. Registration: US$675. Contact: +1 (919) 816 2695, fax +1 (919) 816 2495, email training@sparky.med.ecu.edu, on the Web at www.telemed.med.ecu.edu/.
March 20-21. Sixth Winlab Workshop on Third Generation Wireless Information Networks; New Brunswick, New Jersey. If you consider the Net a tsunami of distributed information now, wait until satellite networks rain a hurricane of high-speed data down to your desktop. Presented by the brains of the Wireless Information Network Laboratory, this etherfest will demystify widely distributed personal communications, mobile computing, and multiple access networks. Registration: US$525. Contact: +1 (908) 445 5954, fax +1 (908) 445 3693, email noreend@winlab.rutgers.edu, on the Web at winwww.rutgers.edu/pub/symposiums/workshop96.
March 23-26. PC Forum; Tucson, Arizona. Exclusively for subscribers of Esther Dyson's bleeding-edge newsletter Release 1.0, the PC Forum is a schmoozathon for �lite technologists and Web entrepreneurs. Share your views on browser wars with Netscape's Jim Barksdale, dis proprietary financial networks in front of Michael Bloomberg, or wrangle some VC dough out of Kleiner Perkins big boy John Doerr. This year's topic, "The Living Web: Models & Metaphors," will come alive with the buzz of the Net biz. Registration: US$3,300. Contact: +1 (212) 924 8800, fax +1 (212) 924 0240, email us@edventure.com, on the Web at www.edventure.com/.
March 25-27. @d:tech.97; Chicago. See information in Chicago article.
April 1-3. Gigabit Networking; Washington, DC. Share the ultimate fat-pipe dream with networking pioneer Leonard Kleinrock and Gigabit Ethernet Alliance chair Tony Lee. Discover the time line for implementable Gigabit Ethernet products, learn what it takes to scale ATM to gigabit speeds, and find out how gigabit networking will affect visualization, animation, and desktop videoconferencing. This Technology Transfer Institute-sponsored speed council is the fast lane to the future of networking. Registration: US$1,095. Contact: +1 (310) 394 8305, fax +1 (310) 451 2104, email custserv@tticom.com, on the Web at www.tticom.com/giganet.
Out on the Range
April 16-18. European Symposium on Artificial Neural Networks; Bruges, Belgium. Contact: +32 (2) 203 43 63, fax +32 (2) 203 42 94, email esann@dice.ucl.ac.be.
- April 25-29. Computer Game Developers Conference; Santa Clara, California. Contact: +1 (415) 905 2702, email cgdc@mfi.com, on the Web at www.cgdc.com/.
- May 8-11. The High Frontier Conference; Princeton, New Jersey. Contact: +1 (609) 921 0377, fax +1 (609) 921 0389.
- May 11-14. Corporate Venture Capital: The Third Wave; Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Contact: +1 (617) 495 6226, email executive_education@hbs.edu.
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