Graphing Social Patterns West, a new O'Reilly conference on social networks and platforms, will take place March 3-4, 2008 at the San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina.  The conference will cover business and marketing topics around popular social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, as well as technology and applications for these new platforms.  Previously an exclusive event for Silicon Valley insiders, Graphing Social Patterns (GSP) has been expanded into a bi-coastal conference through a partnership between O'Reilly Media and startup advisor and technology blogger Dave McClure.

Learn more about GSP West by visiting: http://conferences.oreilly.com/gspwest

The first Graphing Social Patterns conference was produced by McClure and took place in San Jose in October of 2007, to overwhelming audience interest.  Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, has been tracking social networking so it was a natural fit to partner  with McClure. In 2008, McClure has been tapped by O'Reilly Media to chair two Graphing Social Patterns conferences: GSP West in San Diego and GSP East (New York in mid-June). O'Reilly said about the new conferences:

"We're just at the beginning of understanding how the social graph will change every web application.  Anyone who thinks this is just about Facebook, MySpace, or Google's OpenSocial is missing the point.  What is emerging is the identity and social subsystem of the future internet operating system.  Expect the social graph to inform applications in search, in advertising, in media, on your phone as well as on your computer. The GSP conferences are a great addition to our already varied conference roster."

Social networking is being woven into the fabric of both consumer and corporate web sites, with rich new social platforms emerging and applications that can quickly acquire millions of customers in just days.  GSP West, the premier conference for developers and marketers building and distributing apps for social networking platforms, will explore the components of building and distributing apps for social networking platforms.  Now produced for O'Reilly by McClure, this innovative two-day event will address business strategies for viral marketing & social media advertising, as well as architecture and programming techniques for developing widgets and social applications.

"It's impossible to ignore the power of social platforms, and the tremendous technical and marketing innovation they're driving," said GSP program chair McClure. "In just a few years we've seen astonishing growth by social networks like MySpace and Facebook, with hundreds of millions of fanatic new users.  With the emergence of application platforms built on top of these networks, developers & marketers that understand social apps and social advertising can now reach out to those same millions."

Expected to attend GSP West will be more than 500 advertisers, developers, open source programmers, entrepreneurs, and VCs who want to learn more about how to reach online communities using social networking platforms and applications.

Sessions and speakers will include:

-"The Future of Social Networks & Social Platforms," Charlene Li, Forrester Research -"Overview of the MySpace Platform," Kyle Brinkman, VP Product Development at MySpace -"Introduction to Open Social Apps & Containers," Patrick Chanezon, Developer Advocate, Google / Open Social -"Facebook App Development: Elements of Style," Jia Shen, RockYou -"Advertising & Monetization: Turning Apps into Dollars," Seth Goldstein, SocialMedia -"Strategies for Social Platforms & Applications," Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research -"Your Business on Facebook: Facebook Marketing 101," Rodney Rumford, FaceReviews -"Designing Viral Apps: Engineering the Viral Loop," Justin Smith, Inside Facebook -"Viral Marketing on Facebook, MySpace & the Widget Web," Lance Tokuda, RockYou

O'Reilly conferences are about spreading the knowledge of technological innovation, therefore GSP West will be an ideal place for networking and making key contacts. There will be plenty of opportunities for one-to-one interactions at the GSP including these extracurricular activities:

-Ignite: A lighting fast opportunity for companies to present their ideas, products, and offerings.
-AppNite: An on-site contest for developers to compete for prizes -Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Pioneer Awards

The exhibit hall will include sponsors and exhibitors demonstrating products and launching and services that provide real life solutions for the social application platform market. Exhibitors and sponsors from GSP 2007 included Charles River Ventures, Microsost, RockYou!, Topix, AdBrite, videoegg, Plaxo, SocialMedia, Joyent, Sometrics, Hungry Machine, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Inside Facebook, b5media, ProgrammableWeb, Dealmaker Media, and Future Works.

This link will take you to the GSP 2007 site, where you see video, can see slides, video, and press coverage for the previous event: http://graphingsocial.com/press/

Here is a review from the last GSP conference:

"One thing I’ve learned is that you absolutely MUST choose a few places to be a couple times per year to meet new people and talk shop…If you’re not at the Graphing Social Patterns conference, you’re going to miss out on some good stuff." Nate Ritter, Web Directions North http://blog.perfectspace.com/2007/10/07/graphing-social-patterns/

Learn more about GSP West by visiting: http://conferences.oreilly.com/gspwest

To read the news from GSP West visit: http://www.oreillynet.com/conferences/blog/gsp/

To view presentations from last year's GSP conference, visit: http://graphingsocial.com/videos/

If you'd like to stay up to date on information relating to GSP West, sign up for the conference newsletter: http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/nl/home#conferences

To read the O'Reilly Radar, visit:
http://radar.oreilly.com/

To purchase the O'Reilly Radar report "The Facebook Application Platform" click here: http://radar.oreilly.com/research/reports/facebook.html

If you have ideas about areas you'd like to see included at the conference, send a note to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

For information on exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at GSP West or East contact Yvonne Romaine at 707-827-7198, or email her at: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it


If you would like to discuss forming a media or promotional partnership with O'Reilly for an upcoming event, contact Avila Reese at (707) 827-7116 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

About 500 Hats & Dave McClure

Dave McClure has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for almost twenty years as a software developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel investor, blogger, & internet marketing nerd.  He is an advisor or investor for Mint Software, Spock Networks, Mashery, Simply Hired, TeachStreet, Oortle, CrazyEgg, SlideShare, Eventvue, RichRelevance, HealthUnity, & Canopy Financial.  Previously Dave was VP Evangelism at Simply Hired, and before that Director of Marketing at PayPal, where he founded & ran the PayPal Developer Network program.

Dave is the conference chair for Graphing Social Patterns, and a co-chair for Web 2.0 Expo.  He is a guest lecturer at Stanford University for the nation's first-ever course on building Facebook Apps.  Dave is a board member for microfinance accelerator Unitus, advisor to microfinance lender Kiva.org, and a co-founder of the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network.  For more info on Dave visit his blog: Master of 500 Hats.

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