Like: like me, love my data - 24th May, 6-9pm, London

This special mashup* event will be less structured than most mashup* events with more emphasis on discussion and debate. We are aiming to have a few 'speakers' but the emphasis will be on a collaborative discussion around this very important topic. This is reflected in the non-standard reduced price of £25+VAT (which will include drinks).

If you have already registered please login and go to Account (top right of page) to pay for your ticket.

Programme, Venue and Speakers below:

Summary:

Google with Buzz, Facebook with Beacon and Microsoft with Hailstorm all passed a hidden and undefined personal boundary when they launched their respective services and in doing so upset a lot of users. However, web businesses depend on a symbiotic relationship with their users, users bartering their privacy in exchange for free services. It should be a simple, open and fair trade, however, executives are being very skilled in the ability to bounce along the privacy boundary, eroding it but not crossing it. The implication of this erosion is that this balance is becoming one-sided; you give up more but gain no incremental value.

Facebook have announced OpenGraph and Like as two new services that  test the boundaries and they are the focus of this mashup* event.  Facebook claims that the Like button is really innocent but if it catch’s on it will create a seismic shift the balance of power and control of the web from Google to Facebook.

We'll be discussing and debating Like, OpenLike with a view to understanding what the implications are and where the technology and the debate is likely to go. If you work in media or any form of publishing understanding what Facebook are doing with their OpenGraph and social plugins is key and is a strategic must for anyone considering implementing or recommending to their clients the implementation of them.

If you are interested participating at this event (demo slots will be available) please contact emma@mashupevent.com

Speakers:

Raffi Krikorian - Tech Lead Twitterapi

Raffi's Twitter Bio reads: Tinkering, writing, engineering, and breaking things as the tech lead of @twitterapi @Raffi

Benjamin Cohen - Technology correspondent Channel 4 News

Benjamin Cohen joined Channel 4 News in 2006 aged 23 - the youngest correspondent to have been appointed in the programme's history.

Before branching into journalism, Benjamin was an internet entrepreneur, once becoming the youngest director of a public company. His exploits captured on a fly-on the wall documentary.

Having taken part in the first dot.com boom and made and lost a fortune (in virtual money), he's glad to be on the sidelines for the latest boom in the sector. He hopes his own experiences in the industry will give him a unique insight into new business and technology.

Chris Thorpe

Since he gave up playing with really big computers as a research scientist Chris has been trying to find more and more excuses to play with really big computers powering web applications. He’s been involved in projects as diverse as bringing Which? to an online audience, social worlds for 7-11 year olds, video archives of Nobel Prize winners telling their life stories, a James Bond premiere webcast and putting contemporary sculpture on Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth.

He is a co-founder of Jaggeree which is a consultancy which works in the spaces and intersections around content, play, people and data. And he blogs here.

Sam Sethi

Sam has over 25 years working in the IT industry at senior director levels for various companies including Microsoft, Netscape, CMGi and Gateway Computers.  Today he is an Entrepreneur, Strategist, Technologist, OpenWeb Advocate and W3C invited expert as well as consulting to numerous startups both here in the UK and the USA.

He is also a key advocate to the forthcoming open distributed web and contributes to new evolving standards including OpenID, OAuth, ActivityStreams, OpenSocial, PubSubHubbub, RIF etc.

Iskandar Najmuddin

Iskandar sang a-cappella and studied Engineering at Cornell University in upstate New York, after which he founded a local search/mapping web start-up in the SF Bay Area. Since then he has worked internationally as a developer and multidisciplinary technical consultant. He co-founded Nudge Social Media, a dedicated social media agency in 2008, and is currently Technical Director.

Venue

British Computer Society

BCS London Office
First Floor, The Davidson Building
5 Southampton Street
London
WC2E 7HA

Programme:

6.00pm - Registration and Networking

7.00pm - Intro, Speakers and debate

8.20pm - Networking

10.00pm - Close