mesh conference, Author at mesh

Mar 26

Geek Out at meshU

By mesh conference mesh news

The first two mesh conferences have been amazing with great speakers, enthusiastic and engaged participants and some awesome networking.

Since we’re always interested in making mesh better, we asked for your suggestions and feedback. At the top of the list was a desire for more hands-on sessions where people could get a better handle on how to use new technology – be it podcasting, distributed servers, interface design, AJAX, etc.

We listened, we talked about it, we talked about it some more and….decided to expand mesh by adding something new called meshU.

So what is meshU? It’s a one-day event that will feature small, focused workshops. We hope meshU will meet a growing need for practical, down-to-earth information about the tools, the knowledge and the expertise for startups, Web designers and developers of all kinds.

We’ve lined up some great speakers – Dabble DB’s Avi Bryant, Pownce’s Leah Culver, jQuery’s John Resig and Carsonified’s Ryan Carson.

As for the rest of the programming, that’s where you come into play. We’re looking for your input, ideas, suggestions and feedback on the type of workshops you want to see happen and, if you want, who should present them.

Submitting an idea is quick and easy – all you need to do is fill out this the online form (powered by Wufoo.com). We’re looking forward to your ideas and, of course, seeing you on May 20 (the day before mesh) at meshU, which is taking place at the MaRS Collaboration Centre in downtown Toronto.

To attend meshU, you can purchase tickets here for $239.

Mar 25

Love0

Time to get your mesh on!

By mesh conference mesh news

Despite a distinct lack of spring weather in Toronto at the moment, there’s definitely something in the air — and it’s the warmth of an approaching mesh conference! A lot of people have been emailing and Facebook messaging and Twittering and so on in recent weeks, asking us when we were going to launch mesh 2008 and start selling tickets, and the answer is: Right now.

Hopefully you have the dates (May 21st and 22nd) blocked out in your calendar, and now is your chance to lock up those tickets. The sales window is open, and tickets are $469 each, which we at mesh humbly believe is pretty competitive for a two-day Web conference. We’ve also expanded the number of student tickets to 30 this year, so that more students can mesh with us.

Right now, we can tell you about several keynotes: author Matt Mason, whose new book The Pirate’s Dilemma looks at the implications of digital piracy; Club Penguin co-founder Lane Merrifield, a Canadian who helped build a virtual world for children that was bought by Disney for $350-million; and Ethan Kaplan, the head of technology at Warner Brothers Records, who is intimately involved in the evolution of the modern music industry.

We also have some great panelists and other speakers lined up as well, including University of Toronto philosopher and author Mark Kingwell; the CEO and founder of Techdirt, Mike Masnick; media blogger Rachel Sklar from The Huffington Post; digital-copyright expert Michael Geist; Internet researcher Nancy Baym; the founder of RedFlagDeals.com, Derek Szeto, Blip.tv founder Dina Kaplan, CommunityLend CEO Michael Garrity, Agoracom founder George Tsiolis and a host of others. We’ll be adding more as we get closer to the conference, so be sure to keep checking the site for new names and photos.

As mentioned before, we’ve also added a new feature to mesh this year called meshU, a full day of hands-on workshops and panels for startups, web designers and developers of all kinds. It’s on May 20th, the day before mesh. We’ve got some great speakers and workshop leaders lined up for meshU as well — including Avi Bryant of DabbleDB, Pownce founder Leah Culver, Ryan Carson and John Resig. For more details and a link to where you can buy tickets, check out the meshU site.

Mesh on!

Feb 10

Love0

meshU student tickets are sold out

By mesh conference mesh news, mesh09

Just a quick note to let everyone know that the 30 student tickets we had set aside for meshU this April 6th have been snapped up. For those who bought tickets, we ask that you provide a student ID that proves you are enrolled in a secondary school or post-secondary (undergrad or graduate) program at a recognized institution of some kind in order to pick up your ticket.

Meanwhile, regular tickets for meshU continue to sell quickly, and will likely ramp up given our recent announcement about some great new speakers. You can get a meshU ticket right here. Register early and register often 🙂

And if the main mesh conference is more your thing, be sure to drop by the ticket window and pick up a pass for that too. We just announced our fourth and final keynote today: Mike Masnick, founder of floor64 and Techdirt, who will be speaking about the impact that the Web is having on music, movies, books and a variety of other content industries, and how they can learn to profit from scarcity and embrace abundance.