Hi Web 2.0-ers. I hope you’ve had a nice summer. Today marks the start of September, which to me signifies the start of the fall conference season, and what a season it’ll be.

The teams at O’Reilly Media and TechWeb have been diligently programming and producing these past two months – preparing for the second Web 2.0 Expo New York this November – and launching Gov 2 Summit & Showcase in a few short weeks, held in Washington D.C.

Gov 2.0 Summit: The Platform for Change. Over the past fifteen years, the rise of the World Wide Web has resulted in remarkable new possibilities and business models reshaping our culture and our economy. Now the time has come to reshape government. Gov 2 is chaired by Tim O’Reilly and Richard O’Neil (The Highlands Group), alongside an intelligent program committee – read on to see the speaker lineup or schedule.

Web 2.0 Expo New York. The Power of Less. Constraints drive creativity, whether in business models, design paradigms, or platforms. The power of the small screen, the thin client, the streamlined interface. The power of small teams, or even going solo. The paradox of power: sometimes the best way to gain power is to give it away, which is why during these challenging times, we are learning that nothing builds brands like a nurtured community. The power of data: of data-centric business models, and the power of data to inform our decisions and to focus us on what matters. The power of less is the power of creative destruction. It’s the power to change the world. See how to participate here!

And in between the two we’ll manage to host our fifth Web 2 Summit this Oct 20-22, an event I’m particularly proud to announce as this year I have the pleasure of working with program chair John Battelle to help it come to life. He just published the speaker line up and festivities. Exciting stuff!

Headliners I’m particularly interested in hearing is U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra - the man in charge of our $150 billion R&D budget; Steve Schneider – Program Director at WestEd who is establishing the first-ever standard for technology literacy across the U.S. (by 2012); Cynthia Warner – president of a biofuel company that just might have the answer to… well, energy – and Austan Goolsbee – Chief Economist for President Obama. He bantered well with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, keen to see hear his opinions live on stage in front of a roomful of peers. Oh, and last but not least, eager to feed the little hungry geek that lives inside me with the info from Brady Forrest’s ‘Human Sensors Discussion’ – oh, that’ll be good.

In general, there are lots of things that impress me about a conference –

• its intelligence
• its ability to connect peoples, ideas, communities
• its momentary existence (because no two conferences are ever alike)
• its seamless execution (at least when event director Meghan Reilly is at the helm)
• its energy

And I’m really looking forward to experiencing all of that at Summit this fall. Earlier in the year Tim [O’Reilly] and John established the theme #WebSquared – an extension of 2008’s Web Meets World philosophy – and the schedule we’ll be announcing this week is comprehensive and relevant to the issues we are facing as a society today.

From Tim & John -

In our first program, we asked why some companies survived the dotcom bust, while others had failed so miserably. We also studied a burgeoning group of startups and asked why they were growing so quickly. The answers helped us understand the rules of business on this new platform.

Chief among our insights was that “the network as platform” means far more than just offering old applications via the network (“software as a service”); it means building applications that literally get better the more people use them, harnessing network effects not only to acquire users, but also to learn from them and build on their contributions.

Today, we realize that these insights were not only directionally right, but are being applied in areas we only imagined in 2004. The smartphone revolution has moved the Web from our desks to our pockets. Collective intelligence applications are no longer being driven solely by humans typing on keyboards but, increasingly, by sensors. Our phones and cameras are being turned into eyes and ears for applications; motion and location sensors tell where we are, what we’re looking at, and how fast we’re moving. Data is being collected, presented, and acted upon in real time. The scale of participation has increased by orders of magnitude.

Today, the exponential growth of Web has made its technologies service as the backbone of our everyday lives. If you want to discover more on the topic – download the whitepaper, and share your opinion on the Web Squared.

So there you go. That’s the reason we’ve all been so quiet here… there is a lot going on and we want you to explore and enjoy these live events. But if you can’t be with us in person, as always, you can catch the keynotes and recorded content on the various Blip.tv channels. There is currently only archived content, 2009 videos will get posted to these channels within a week of the event.

• Gov 2 Events
• Web 2 Summit
• Web 2 Expo

Stay tuned for more conference information and community announcements. Once again, let the games begin!

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Note: Janetti Chon is now Web 2 Summit’s Producer at Battellemedia, a partner of O’Reilly Media & TechWeb.

I’m a travel fiend and fell in love with Dopplr, an online service for smarter travel.

Dopplr helps you make more of your travels by sharing your future trips privately with friends and colleagues. The service then highlights coincidences, for example, telling you that three people you know will be in Tokyo when you will be there too. You can use Dopplr on your personal computer or mobile phone. It links with many popular online calendars and social networks.

I log where I’m going and all of a sudden I know who in my network will be in town. I’ve found it to be a great tool for serendipitous meetings around the country; around the world. Fun!

Late last year the great folks at Dopplr added a groups feature which let us track the various countries that attended Web 2.0 Expo Europe in Berlin.

Pretty, pretty cool.

Well, we’ve established group pages for Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco and if you’re a fan of serendipitous meetings, join our group and represent your home town

There’s also a group for Web 2.0 Summit 2009 and we’ll get one set up for our fall New York show as well.

If you want to learn more about Dopplr and the new stuff they are launching – take a look at their blog.

Happy traveling folks. Hope to see you in San Francisco!

What an exciting week. It began with the observation of Martin Luther King Jr. Day followed by the  inauguration of our 44th President, Barack Obama. It’s a fitting coincidence that Moya’s recap of Web 2.0 Summit, which took place in November, commencing the day after elections, was brought to my attention.

With several political figures gracing our stage at Summit, including the honorable Al Gore, Arianna Huffington and Gavin Newsom, Moya shares that not only did the sessions at Web 2.0 Summit concentrate on its theme of Web Meets World but in her opinion, the conference was also about how Web meets politics.

I’d like to share some of her sentiments here:

You could say that last week’s Web 2.0 Summit lived handily up to its theme “Web Meets World.” You could also say that although I was present in the audience, never more than five rows back from the stage, I was in a major post-election daze throughout and, well, missed some things. Undeniably through this watery filter, as I sit this week and try to wrap up my thoughts on the event, what’s clearly in focus is that what the Web really met last week at the Summit was Politics. I might even try to tell you that’s the only thing — and the most important thing — it met.

Would you blame me? The day after Obama was elected President of the United States, the top-three trending topics on Twitter (say that three-times-fast!) were, in this order: Prop 8, web2summit, and Obama — and they stayed that way throughout nearly the entire conference.

What follows is my wrap, therefore, of the Web 2.0 Summit 2008: Web Meets Politics.

Click the link above to read the full entry. Thanks for your recap Moya. And for those who were not in attendance, here is the video to Al Gore’s conversation with conference chairs John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly.

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…

Thank you to our great photographer James Duncan Davidson and Animoto for putting this video slideshow together for us.

Update from John Battelle’s searchblog: Launch Pad companies are reviewed and judged by leadings VCs (Khosla Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, NEA, Omidyar Network, Panorama Capital, and Sequoia Capital), but there is no requirement of a “funding need.”

The goal is to honor six great private companies, not six great private companies who need funding.

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For those who may not know, Web 2.0 Summit is our thought-leadership conference, focusing on industry challenges and opportunities, highlighting in particular the business models and leaders driving the Internet economy.

In this period of global environmental concern, economic chaos, and impactful political decision-making, it’s important to understand the value we as individuals, and as innovators, can add to the world today… and to all of our future tomorrows.

So this year, conference chairs Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle (and team) are making a point to take the conversation beyond the Web, to ask the questions: How can we tap the Webits technologies, its values, and its cultureto address the world’s most pressing limits? How do we use the Web to create opportunities for a better tomorrow?

Web 2.0 Summit is the host to the original Launch Pad startup competition that we replicated at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008. This year Web 2.0 Summit announced a revised theme for Launch Pad: Fourth Edition – Web Meets World.

What does that mean?

On November 6th, six startups will get the opportunity to pitch their company in front of the Web 2.0 Summit audiencethe top executives, financiers, press, and analysts in the Internet industry. This will take place on the Summit main stage alongside a panel of esteemed VC judges, with real-time VC and audience feedback.

The focus will be twofold:

First, on startups in the fields of alternative energies, social entreprenuerialism, microfinance, developing economies, political action, renewable technologies, and the like.

And secondly, we’re interested in companies addressing where the Web literally meets the world: mobility, mapping and geolocation, sensor networks – anything where the Web and the real world intersect.

Deadline for submissions is Wednesday, October 1st.

Note: Please do take time to consider if you truly fit the category before presenting your submission.

There is no fee for companies involved, instead, our VC panel will be sponsoring the program.