Don’t forget to register for the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin. Today is the last day of the early price. See this post by Brady on how to register.

I just registered and Reinier and myself will drive to Berlin from the Netherlands. We have 2 seats available to join us for the ride. Definitive date of departure and return to be discussed. Fuel price split, this will probably be the most comfortable and cheapest way to get to Berlin.

And now it’s off to the Hague for the Web 2.0 drinks in the Boterwaag. See you there.

Update: Cristiano is also coming. Right, Cris?

I was thinking of going to XTech this year but I haven’t really made up my mind yet.

XTech is traditionally a very XML and W3C heavy conference with some different influences each year. If you ignore all the academical stuff about XML you can pretty much say it is a technical conference about the internet.

I attended last year and that was pretty interesting and conveniently located in Amsterdam and was adjoined by a Barcamp. This year’s edition is in Paris.

Looking over the schedule, I can’t help but notice that a lot of the talks are very introductory in nature (like last year) and that this year’s program at times is very similar to last year’s program. I see a lot of the same names and in some cases also the exact same topics. A casual observer might think that the web hasn’t changed that much in one year.

As a new player Joost seems to be well represented and positively Jyri Engeström, Jeremy Keith and Schulze & Webb will be presenting there.

Any thoughts?

Some pictures from last year:

The date had been tentative for a couple of months now, but a couple of weeks ago Thomas made it definitive and announced the theme for Reboot9 (May 31st & June 1st, Upcoming). It’s going to be “Human” which contrasts with the technology as much as it doesn’t. It’s all about humans after all.

Reboot last year was a great experience and I look forward to repeating that meeting with familiar and new people and learning a lot both in the program and outside of it.

I already registered for Reboot9 some weeks ago before I graduated. Now I’m just looking for some accomodation and I’ll probably book my flight to Copenhagen in the next few days.

The Reboot site is completely renewed this year with an implementation of AnyMeta enabling social networking to support the event. My profile is still work in progress but so is most other stuff. It is cool that relations, proposals, votes and similarities can be built in the next months before the conference.

AnyMeta is a Mediamatic product which they are looking to extend to enable social networking interoperability. See the OpenCI page on the Reboot site.

The Next Web

It’s a bit of a pain to see Reboot9’s date collide with the date for the Next Web conference (June 1st). I attended the Next Web last year and the event and the subsequent party both were a blast.

(Picture by Erwin Boogert)

Last year the scene around web in Amsterdam already was quite hot and lots of people from all over attended. I met great people on and around the event and at the party later. I expect this year to be spectacularly bigger and busier with a great venue like Tuschinski and the scene being as hot as it is right now.

I would like to go to both, but given the choice I will be attending Reboot. Maybe Reinier will go and represent Four Starters.

Events

My event schedule has been cleared for most of last year but now that I’ve graduated I’m ready again to fill my schedule and maybe organize a couple of my own. Suggestions welcome.

Next Tuesday I have my final graduation presentation. I handed in the report to the committee this Wednesday and I finished most of my deck today. It’s going to be fun, and hard and stressful and soon it will all be over.

This is one of those all changing shifts in life around which we concepted this blog. All four of us are starting something and ending other things and we are trying to make the best decisions in doing both.

Readers of this blog are invited to the presentation (Upcoming) and to the subsequent congratulatory drinks. Be kind and drop a comment here if you plan to attend.

Next week is also the planned official launch of Four Starters with the much anticipated new layout.

On another note, Reboot 9 emerged today and I registered it immediately. It runs 31st of May to 1st of June this year and I cannot recommend it enough. I am very much looking forward to expanding my mind with new concepts and meeting again with old friends. They also have a new site (click on the image).

It looks like flight prices are the same all over. I’ll ask around a bit next week to see what other people are doing and then book my flight and hostel for the week. I’ll probably fly in on the 29th and fly out on the 3rd because I like to spend a couple of extra days in Copenhagen.