Last week Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine (writer, professor, blogger and media guru) launched his new book: What Would Google Do?

Publisher Harper Collins describes it as such:

In a book that’s one part prophecy, one part thought experiment, one part manifesto, and one part survival manual, internet impresario and blogging pioneer Jeff Jarvis reverse-engineers Google—the fastest-growing company in history—to discover forty clear and straightforward rules to manage and live by. At the same time, he illuminates the new worldview of the internet generation: how it challenges and destroys, but also opens up vast new opportunities. His findings are counterintuitive, imaginative, practical, and above all visionary, giving readers a glimpse of how everyone and everything—from corporations to governments, nations to individuals—must evolve in the Google era.

Along the way, he looks under the hood of a car designed by its drivers, ponders a worldwide university where the students design their curriculum, envisions an airline fueled by a social network, imagines the open-source restaurant, and examines a series of industries and institutions that will soon benefit from this book’s central question.

The result is an astonishing, mind-opening book that, in the end, is not about Google. It’s about you.

Jeff’s been working on this book for a while and he presented some of his thinking, and relevant case studies at last fall’s Web 2.0 Expo New York. Co-presented with BusinessWeek, take a look at the pearls of wisdom Jeff shared with our attendees in his session: What Would Google Do? How Media Must Revolutionize Their Thinking.

And if you’re in NY tomorrow for 2009′s inaugural NY Tech Meetup then you’ll get a special treat as Jeff will present a book talk. The rest of NYTM will focus on the theme: “Mobile Meets Social” and there is a great line up of East Coast companies that will demo for your favor:

Peek (the award winning email device for everyone)
Xtify (the API for location-based apps)
OMICU (OMG you’ll love this)
Mobile Commons (the SMS back-end for some of the world’s most important campaigns)
Coovents (where’s the cheap beer?)
Flixwagon (are you live-casting this?)
&
viaPlace (the platform for marking things around you)

Web 2.0 Expo conference chairs Jen Pahlka and Brady Forrest will also be attending the meetup, so stop by, say hello and let them know your thoughts.

Have fun NY. Miss you & wish I could be there!

~ Janetti

This week I attended New York Tech Meetup’s monthly gathering at the beautiful IAC building. Straying from the usual five-minute company demos, the presentations were given by nine candidates competing for the spot as the new organizer to the largest meetup group in the tri-state area.

Founded four years ago by Scott Heiferman, CEO of Meetup.com and co-produced by Web 2.0 Expo advisory board member Dawn Barber, NYTM has grown to a whopping 7,500 plus members, and it’s still growing. And in the spirit of meetup, which emphasizes self-organization and community consensus, rather than hand-selecting his successor Scott and Dawn announced an open election.

Hare the folks who decided to step up:

1. Gregory Magarshak
2. Joe DiPasquale
3. James Wallace
4. Joshua Sherman
5. Chip Welsh
6. Sanford Dickert
7. Oz Sultan
8. Owen Brunette
9. Nate Westheimer

The online election process.
Today at 12:01am EST the online polling began.
Members can view videos and read candidate statements for more details.
Polling closes promptly at 11:59pm EST.

“NYTM is for you and about you. Self-organize. Vote.” ~ Dawn Barber

The future of NYTM.
In a certain sense, this community is still in its infancy. And as curious as everyone is about WHO will be the next organizer, the bigger question seems to be centered on WHAT this organizer will do to evolve and grow this prospering tech community.

Joshua Sherman proposed “more beer” – to mean more post-demo networking & social events. Oz Sultan created a vision of getting city support via subsidies while Sanford Dickert presented a passionate statement inviting members to join the conversation about the future of NYTM via www.nytechvision.com.

James Wallace suggests making NYTM more diverse and more inclusive: “let’s stop having the same people talk to each other and branch out to different groups, verticals.”

And Nate Westheimer (organizer of @w2e New York’s Web2Open) emphasized coordination and collaboration as the key to more cross-community involvement.

Alley vs. Valley
Many candidates mentioned that the ideas and talent arising from Silicon Alley are on a level that battles the goings-on of Silicon Valley. Competition breeds innovation, and as a New Yorker and a (very) recent transplant to San Francisco, I look forward to watching and participating as the battle rages on.

An end of an era.
To close out December’s meetup Dawn uncharacteristically took center stage to thank Scott for all the work he’s put into the NY tech community, a statement that was met with a standing ovation. Although Scott and Dawn will stay on the to-be-formed board to continue to provide direction and support for whoever takes the stage next, come Tuesday, January 6th New York City’s tech community will welcome a new MC and new leadership to carry NYTM through 2009 onward.

Thanks Scott and Dawn for all the work you’ve done to build this great community.

Good luck candidates and good luck NYTM!

* Membership to NYTM has been temporarily suspended until elections are over.

The blogosphere continues to buzz about Gary Vaynerchuk’s presentation at Web 2.0 Expo New York back in September. “Gary is an outstanding speaker and a definite motivator,” wrote Ryan Leary just this week in his introduction to Gary’s presentation that he embedded on his blog.

This surprised me a little–I mean, Web 2.0 Expo New York wrapped a few months ago. Surely we’ve moved on to newer Web 2.0 topics by now? But the common thread in the references I’ve seen explains it, I think: Gary is very persuasively expressing his passion for what he does. His passion is inspiring and can be applied to just about any endeavor. (I should’ve watched the video frequently last month while I was doing NaNoWriMo, I might’ve put more words to paper…) He also uses his enthusiasm to prod us as well as encourage us–an engaging combination.

If you haven’t already, watch Gary’s presentation for yourself (heads-up: Gary uses adult language in his presentation).

Clay Shirky’s talk from Web 2.0 Expo SF back in April still rocks our video charts, too. And while Clay’s style is a bit more measured than Gary’s, the issues he raises around productivity and attention are equally compelling and vital.

A reminder that all of the Web 2.0 Expo keynote presentations from San Francisco, New York, and Europe are posted on blip.tv.

And if you still haven’t gotten enough Web 2.0 footage, all of the presentations from last month’s Web 2.0 Summit (yes, including Al Gore) plus selections from the 2007 edition.

Web 2.0 Expo co-chairs Jen Pahlka of Techweb and Brady Forrest of O’Reilly are busy putting together the program for the San Francisco edition of Web 2.0 Expo in April. Wonder who will be most-viewed this time next year…

Submitting a proposal to any of our Web 2.0 Expo events is a simple process:

We typically open to receive submissions several months in advance of each show, so, first, join our newsletter to get updates on participation deadlines. You can choose to receive information on your show of choice or all of our upcoming events; its up to you.

When you’re ready to submit a proposal to a particular show, check the website and there will be a link to our online submissions form. Since emails get lost and we received hundreds of submissions, we use this online database to capture everything. We hate losing proposals as much as you hate us losing them.

There you will find information about session formats, conference tracks, and concepts that we plan to explore, which might help you to tailor your proposal for a specific audience or focus on a certain subject.

Have questions about writing your proposal? You might want to take a look at a blog post our program chair Jennifer Pahlka wrote on tips for writing speaking proposals. Let us help you, help us get the best content possible!

Once you’ve submitted your proposal will be reviewed by our committee and we’ll inform you if your topic is a good fit.

We look forward to receiving your great ideas and hope to see you at our next Web 2.0 Expo!

At Web 2.0 Expo New York last month The Barbarian Group contributed an interactive digital installation for our conference guests to enjoy.

The McCleod Mirror is based on the concept of being an individual. And that to know oneself, we have to see ourselves.

The original concept was an installation for a Nokia store, where they made a processing-based software application that took the input from a webcam and assembled a mosaic of the image from the webcam, using a series of pre-stored images, text, and previous input from the webcam. All the source images were the same size, and square, which felt a bit limiting, but the video made for a nice effect.

The Barbarian Group them partnered up with the McLeod Residence, a new type of interactive art gallery and space in Seattle, WA. They tweaked their code and got the mirrors working with images of different sizes, creating an entirely new sensation.

Guests at Web 2.0 Expo took photos of their reflected images and posted it to our Flickr group.

(Thanks to Duncan, one of our official event photographers for setting that up for us)

We’re a big fan of the digital arts community – and a few months back during Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco we coordinated with Gray Area Gallery, an SF-based visual arts gallery with their launch of Gray Area Beacon, a temporary art space in SOMA. They, in turn, shared some of the great digital work of Aaron Koblin in our bloggers lounge.

Aaron is the genius behind the sheep market and his piece Flight Patterns, a visualization of parsed and plotted FAA data, was added to the Museum of Modern Art in New York’s permanent collection.

For Web 2.0 Expo Europe we had this idea to create “virtual break rooms” … for folks who needed some down time while on-site. Unfortunately my artist had to take a trip overseas so it doesn’t seem like we’ll make it in time for the event but… I’ll stop from giving it all away, just in case.

Berlin in particular is a city bubbling with artists but the world is our playground and the Web is everywhere. So if you are a digital artist and want to share some of your work with us – either via web or perhaps for some future installation. . . leave a comment, share your art… let us know.

We’re still resurfacing from the madness of a great and successful event. Thanks for coming and sharing in the experience. We could not have launched this show without all of you. Hope you enjoyed!

Web2Expo Interviews from Michelle DeForest on Vimeo.

We want to provide you with the content you want to hear. And though this is the final day of Web 2.0 Expo New York – we’ll be back next fall.

So please, rate the sessions you attended. We want and need your feedback in order to create a better program for you for 2009 (but yes, we realize this year’s sessions are going to be hard to beat).

Go to your schedule on Crowdvine and leave comments for your speakers and leave a rating.

Much appreciated,

The Program Team + Speakers

Hi everyone, for those who hadn’t noticed. Sessions started at 12:05pm.

It’ll end at 12:55pm and then will lead into lunch.

The afternoon sessions times are:

2:25 – 3:15pm

3:30 – 4:20pm

See the schedule here.

Hi everyone,

Videos from Wednesday’s keynote are up and live, they are linked off our homepage but also can be found directly here.

Thursday’s keynote videos will be up around 5 pm (ish) EST.

Friday’s keynote videos will be posted by Saturday evening.

As for presentations – all workshop and session presentations are being posted and linked off our homepage but can also be found here.

They will live there indefinitely.

If they are not up, it means that speakers have not presented us or approved us to post.

Hope this answers the questions. Let us know if you’ve got any more.

We are getting presentation slides up on the Web 2.0 Expo New York homepage as we receive them from our speakers. We aim to have presentations up by the end of the event, and will continue to work through the weekend to get them posted.

Keynotes videos have a 24-hour turn-around time so Wednesday’s keynote videos will be posted by this afternoon.

Thanks.