It's All About User Engagement - Engage Expo

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Parent Category: Expos and Conventions

Category: Previews

Published on Tuesday, 16 February 2010 01:03

Written by L E Shannon

Engage!® Conference and Expo is the definitive event on youth entertainment technology. Taking place February 16-17, 2010 at the Javits Convention Center in New York City, this year's Engage runs concurrently with Toy Fair.

Engage covers the critical information needed to deeply connect with and generate revenue from youth and parents online and on mobile devices. Coverage includes social games, virtual goods, virtual worlds, branded apps and online-offline toys.

100 engaging speakers presents 32 intense sessions delivering key insight into new monetization strategies, proven ways to strengthen customer relationships, and essential marketing solutions to maximize reach.

This year's Keynote speakers are:

Will Wright, Founder and Chief Executive, Stupid Fun Club and Creator, Spore andThe Sims
The renowned creator of the world's top-selling computer game of all time celebrates his first ever visit to Engage! and Toy Fair with the opening day Engage! keynote. Will's presentation, The Evolution of Entertainment, A Toy's Place, will look at toys, play, and the product development process from a new perspective. "I'm really excited to be at Engage! Expo and Toy Fair this year,” said Wright. “I mean come on, who doesn't love toys?"

Lane Merrifield, Executive Vice President, Disney Online Studios, and Co-Founder and General Manager, Club Penguin
In addition to Club Penguin, Lane also oversees the development for all of The Walt Disney Company's virtual worlds including the soon to be launched World of Cars Online.

Natalie Hornsby, VP of Marketing, Cepia LLC. Creators of Zhu Zhu Pets
Natalie has been the driving force behind the marketing and branding of Zhu Zhu Pets, which went from  from obscurity to phenomenon in half a year.  

Tor Sirset, Vice President of Marketing Girls/Preschool, Bandai America Inc.
Bandai is expanding to the girls category and integrating online into the majority of these toys. Sirset discusses the strategy behind this rollout and how the Internet plays an increasingly important role in the crafting and marketing of toys.

The conference includes 4 major tracks:

Toys and Online – With the advent of web-connected and wireless-connected toys, toys that have an online or virtual world component, toy companies now have a direct connection to their consumers. Some of the sessions are:

• Leveraging the Web: Connecting Kids' Online Worlds to Offline Toys
• A Focus Group with the Kids: What Are They Playing, Where are They Spending?
• It's the Activity Stupid: Keeping Kids and Tweens Engaged

Online Games and Virtual Worlds – Online games and virtual worlds provide the ultimate in user engagement. Whether it is flash games on a web site, a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) or a 2D or 3D virtual world, users stick around longer and build a relationship with the game, world or brand. Sessions include:

• Tapping into the Emotional Triggers of Consumers
• Adapting to Customers' Preferences and Business Needs: Best Practices for Keeping Your Online World Running, After You've Launched
• Safety in Online Worlds: How the Federal Trade Commission Sees It

Technology Platforms – This 1-day track discusses the latest in engaging technology platforms and the best practices for implementation, from the immersive experience of 2D and 3D virtual worlds to minimal online experiences, such as mobile apps, that may involve just a few minutes of daily interactivity. Sessions include:

• Adding A Powerful Online Presence To An Existing Offline Brand
• User Generated Online Content for Kids: Freedom vs. Safety
• Developing A Dynamic and Engaging Online Play Strategy On a Budget

Virtual Goods Conference – Generating millions in revenues, Virtual Goods have been described as the perfect business: charging real money for digital products that may not exist in the real world. Sessins include:

• Trends in Virtual Goods and Payment Solutions
• Digital Kids and the Rise of Retail Game Cards
• Taking Your Brand to iPhone, Facebook and Other Online Platforms

Some of the session speakers are:

Chris Bergstresser, CEO and Co-founder, Vector Entertainment, Inc.
Cynthia Breazeal, Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab
Rich Cleveland, Sr. Director Marketing, Digital Media and Gaming, Hasbro
Renata Dionello, Director, Consumer Business Development, PayPal
Anita Frazier, Industry Analyst, Toys & Video Games, NPD Group
James Gatto, IP Practice Section Leader, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Krista Marks, General Manager, Disney Online Kerpoof Studios
Jesse Soleil, Vice President, Emerging Media and Technology, eScholastic
Tim Williams, VP Sales and Marketing, Engage Digital Media
Susan Wu, CEO & Co-Founder, ohai

Engage! brings together the leaders from the technology, toy, game and entertainment industries and provides critical cross-industry learning and valuable new business partnership and networking opportunities.

For more information, visit www.engageexpo.com.  

Engage!® Conference and Expo
February 16-17, 2010

Javits Convention Center
655 West 34th Street
New York City,

PyCon 2010

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Parent Category: Expos and Conventions

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 15 February 2010 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

PyCon 2010 takes place February 17 to 25, 2010, at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference is organized and run by volunteer programmers of the computer language Python; the users' perspective governs everything from talk selection to conference cost, making an exceptionally worthwhile conference. The first two days are tutorials, followed by the three-day conference.

Attendees gather for serious learning, discussion, and strategizing, as well as fun. PyCon 2010, the eighth annual conference of the Python programming community, promises more talks, more education, more creativity; more work and more play. PyCon 2009 drew nearly a thousand Python programmers from around the world, representing projects on all seven continents - including Antarctica.  

Interest in PyCon is growing along with the use of the Python language itself. This year alone has seen a 50% increase in the number of talk proposals submitted by community members, and the organizers have added an unprecedented fifth track to the conference schedule.

The conference will include 95 regular talks and panels, covering everything from language basics to deep-space astronomy to robotic submarines. PyCon also offers 32 half-day tutorials, Open Space sessions, special keynotes, Lightning Talks, development sprints, an exhibit hall, and a hands-on lab - countless opportunities for attendees to learn.

This year, PyCon also introduces Poster Sessions for detailed, personal examination of a variety of topics with subject matter experts. Poster sessions provide an alternative presentation mechanism that facilitates more one-on-one communication between the presenter and the audience. Poster sessions are particularly suited for topics of interest to a subset of the community.

Python's growth has been partially driven by an explosion in new implementations of the language. The IronPython and Jython implementations make Python a good tool for .NET and Java environments, say proponents, in that it helps make full use of those platforms' capabilities and libraries. Other implementations, like Stackless and Google's Unladen-Swallow, focus on improving Python execution speed.

Finally, the Pynie and PyPy implementations bring Python programs to all-new experimental execution environments. All these implementations will be examined in several PyCon talks and in PyCon's Python Language Summit and Virtual Machine Summit.

Keynote Speakers

Antonio Rodriguez was CTO of HP's consumer imaging and printing business where he worked on a wide array of projects: from mass customization to making the web more "printable," to e-reading, to mobile platforms. He came to HP through the acquisition of Tabblo, a company he founded in 2005.

Mark Shuttleworth is founder of the Ubuntu Project, an enterprise Linux distribution that is freely available worldwide, and has both cutting-edge desktop and enterprise server editions, and has become very popular. In April 2002 Mark flew in space, as a cosmonaut member of the crew of Soyuz mission TM34 to the International Space Station.

Invited Talks include:

Ian Bicking – Deployment, Development, Packaging, and a Little Bit of the Cloud

Jeff Rush – Interfaces, Adapters and Factories

Jack Diederich – Python's Dusty Corners

Ned Batchelder  – Tests and Testability

Lightning Talks
A lightning talk is a short presentation of an attendee’s choosing, no longer than five minutes. Unlike scheduled talks, there is no approval process; speakers simply sign up during PyCon.

This quick pace forces speakers to focus on the essentials and treats the audience to ten different topics in an hour. PyCon 2010 will aim for five sessions.

Development Sprints
A sprint is a time set aside for developers to come together and focus their undivided attention on improving an open source project. The PyCon Development Sprints are four days of intensive learning and development—a focused, sustained time to test, fix bugs, add new features, and improve documentation.

Development sprints are a key part of PyCon, a chance for the contributors to open-source projects to get together face-to-face for up to four days of intensive learning and development. Newbies sit at the same table as the gurus, go out for lunch and dinner together, and have a great time while advancing their project. All experience levels are welcome.

About PyCon
Presented by the Python Software Foundation and sponsored by Google, the world’s largest Python conference brings together a diverse group of developers, enthusiasts, and organizations to explore new challenges, launch new businesses and forge new connections within the Python community. PyCon provides attendees with the opportunity to delve into the dynamic programming language relied upon by institutions from MIT and NASA to Cisco and Walt Disney. PyCon helps people learn new tools and techniques, present their own projects, and meet other Python fans.

About Python
Python is an open-source, dynamically typed, object-oriented programming language that can be used in nearly the entire range of technology applications. It offers an easy learning curve and access to a vast array of libraries. With implementations available for all common operating systems as well as the Java and .NET platforms, Python can be used on virtually any system in existence. Python's power and versatility have made it one of the world's most popular programming languages, currently ranked #7 in the TIOBE index. Like other open-source, dynamic languages, it offers rapid productivity and a vigorous developer community; at the same time, Python's clarity and reliability give confidence to enterprise users.

For more information, go to http://us.pycon.org.  

PyCon 2010
February 17-25, 2010

Hyatt Regency Atlanta
265 Peachtree Street NE
Atlanta, Georgia, USA 30303

Toy Fair 2010 Drives This Hoarder Crazy for New Toy Trends

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Parent Category: Expos and Conventions

Category: Previews

Published on Sunday, 14 February 2010 05:00

Written by Brad Balfour

For a guy with an apartment cluttered with classic metal toys, quirky objects and offbeat street finds, the annual Toy Fair held at The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center (this year from February 14 to 17) is both a celebration and a torture. With over 1,200 exhibitors filling 345,000 square feet of exhibit space, and 100,000 products displayed (7,000 of which for the first time), the 30,000 attendees expected will find it nearly impossible to check out, let alone acquire, a decent portion of the goodies available. At least I know I won't — though I will try.

Within these four days, toy manufacturers, buyers, retailers and sundry other related professionals, under the Toy Industry Association (TIA) auspices, will attempt to do an entire year’s worth of business under one roof. Meanwhile, a stalwart toy aficionado can not only find the classics — such as Monogram Models or metal cars and classic Gund Teddy Bears — but also the quirky. And for one who is also a professional trend seeker, there are also the latest innovations in technology; geek cutting-edge; and geopolitical subject matter that inspires deep-minded board games.

Over the years, I've seen robotic dolls introduced, Ebola-infected teddy bears unveiled and economic collapse simulated and replayed in virtual reality at the annual Toy Fair gaming section.

So, that's why I make it my mission every year to spend at least a two full days at Toy Fair. I discovered the Ugly Dolls there, met co-creator David Horvath and got him to sign the doll he gave me. I became a fan of the new crop of alterna-toys — things like Emily Strange or the StrangeCo aliens or the ScareBears and the Bloody Goths from Bleeding Edge Toys. In the last 10 years, these collectibles have emerged as part of the overall expanding adult collectible market. But that's hardly all that is new in toy trends.

Over at the Chelsea Piers Saturday night, Feb. 13, John Lasseter, the chief creative officer of Walt Disney/Pixar Animation Studios, and the late Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, will be inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame. Established in 1984, the Hall of Fame has an impressive roster of 55 individuals who have been previously honored for their contributions to the growth and success of the toy industry. They are nominated by the industry at large and selected based on votes received from the Toy Industry Association's membership. 

And during the four days that the 107th Fair is held at the Javits, a series of special events will take place, such as the "cast of characters" parade and ribbon-cutting ceremony in the Crystal Palace at 10 am on Sunday – a whimsical start to the high-powered business opportunities at this show. There will be a session called "Growing Green: A Toy Industry Update on Environmental Sustainability and Bottom Line Growth" taking place at 3 p.m. on Monday. And on the closing day, the Toy Bank will collect donations to be given to critically ill, abused and abandoned children through various partner organizations such as the My Stuff Bags Foundation, the Boys and Girls Clubs and Ronald MacDonald House.

For more info go to: http://www.toyassociation.org

Toy Fair 2010
February 14 - 17, 2010
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
655 West 34th Street
New York, NY 10001