Ali is editor and publisher of paidContent.org, a digital media business news and analysis site that won the European Online Journalism Award for 2003, and the Find/SVP's Best of Business Web Award for 2003. He is also the editor of Moco.News, a news site devoted to mobile content.

Both of these sites form part of ContentNext, an independent media and information company covering the business of digital media.

Prior to this, Rafat was managing editor of Manhattan-based Silicon Alley Reporter," where he covered the Internet and tech sectors.

In 2003, Editor & Publisher referred to Ali as, "journalism's poster boy for career independence from news companies," and CBS MarketWatch called him "a pioneer in using the Web for an almost real-time business news feed."

He was the Knight Foundation Fellow in 1999-2000 at Indiana University, and has recently moved from London to Los Angeles.

Anker is executive vice resident, corporate development for blog platform developer Six Apart, creators of MovableType and TypePad. Prior to joining Six Apart, Andrew was a general partner for five years at August Capital, where he invested in such consumer facing internet companies as Tickle, Evite and Listen.com.

A veteran of two start-ups prior to his venture career, Andrew was the co-founder and chief executive officer of Wired Digital, Inc., a pioneering Internet news and media organization which launched the first advertising supported web site (HotWired) in 1994. Andrew led Wired Digital from its founding through 1998 and built it into one of the 20 largest networks of web sites.

Andrew created and still contributes to VentureBlog and has written for Wired and Business 2.0 magazines. In 1997, he was profiled in the book "Architects of the Web: 1,000 Days that Built the Future of Business."

Barak has over 20 years of experience in general management, sales and marketing of consumer technology products. Prior to his position as CEO and Chairman of Six Apart, he was co-founder and President of OmniSky, the wireless Internet innovator which went public in 2000 and was later acquired by Earthlink. Previously he has served as Executive Vice President and General Manager at the Go Network and built it into one of the top five Web portals at the time uniting the Web properties of Infoseek.Com, Disney, ABC, ESPN and many others. Before the Go Network, Barak served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Americas for Logitech and also held key roles at Apple Computer and Macy's, as well as being the Founder of MarketCentrix, a technology strategy consultancy.

Bonner has been putting things on the internet since 1994. As the creator of several widespread memes he has been featured in The Washington Post, The Industry Standard, CNN, Playboy, Salon, Forbes, ZDNet, Wired News, The Register, CBS, The NY Post, USA today, Chicago Sun Times, Silicon Alley Reporter, Yahoo! Magazine (Best of the Web) and more.

He and Jason DeFillippo created the hyper local group blog, Blogging.la and the city network blogs of Metroblogging. Additionally he blogs about Apple for Weblogs Inc, Politics for AmericaForSale.org, and a little bit of everything else for his own site seanbonner.com. Based in Los Angeles, he and his wife Caryn Coleman own the contemporary art gallery sixspace, where they work with and represent some of today's most talented artists. Their website, sixspace.com is one of the most highly trafficked art institutions on the web. Art and internet have come together more than once with projects he's co-created such at sarsart.org and SENT: America's first phonecam art show.

boyd is a PhD student in Information Management at the University of California, Berkeley. She develops social visualizations, collects ethnographic data and builds on social science and humanities theories in order to understand how people negotiate their presentation of self in mediated social contexts to an unknown audience. Recently, danah has been studying Friendster, blogs and journals.

Previously, danah studied computer science at Brown University and sociable media at the MIT Media Lab. She also spent five years creating and managing an online support community for V-Day, a non-profit working to end violence against women and girls worldwide.

Stowe joined Corante in August 2003 as editor of the social tools Industry Insider Get Real, and assumed the new role of managing director of Corante Research in May 2004, where he directs all research and advisory activities for the company. Stowe has worked as software researcher, entrepreneur, analyst, and consultant, most recently through A Working Model, his personal consulting practice.

Over the past decade he has consulted, written and spoken widely on the challenges confronting business management and the social impacts of disruptive technologies. He has served in prestigious advisory roles: GIGA Senior Consulting Partner, Contributing Editor KMWorld, Cutter Consortium Senior Principal, and Research Fellow at the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change; a Research Fellow for the Market Intelligence Group; and he has served as editor and columnist for Darwin, Knowledge Management, Cutter, John Wiley & Sons, and Fawcette.

Bruggeman is a founder and EVP of ActiveWords Inc. where he is responsible for all marketing, evangelizing, and business development. Bruggeman. a DEMO God 2004 Award recipient, speaks regularly as a champion of both his company and the benefits of blogging as a low-cost, highly effective marketing tool on a global level.
Jupitermedia recently named ActiveWords as the 3rd Best Software Product of the year, after OpenOffice and Microsoft 2003. Bruggeman also serves on the advisory board of DEMO.

Jason McCabe Calacanis is currently chairman of Weblogs, Inc. Network. Previously, he created, with Barry Wine, a virtual chat environment called Restaurant City, where users could sit in a sushi bar — or dive bar — and chat. America Online bought the property in 1995.

Calacanis went on to consult for a venture capital firm in New York City, which would later be known as Flatiron Partners. He created a 16-page newsletter called Silicon Alley Reporter that quickly grew into a must-read. In four years Calacanis and his team built the company to $12 million dollars in yearly revenue. When the Internet industry consolidated in 2000 and 2001 Calacanis changed the name of the magazine to Venture Reporter and shifted from an advertising model to a database subscription model. That move saved the company while other Internet publications crashed and burned.

In April 2003, Calacanis sold Venture Reporter to Wicks Business Information, the owners of VentureOne and VentureSource—the most respected venture capital databases in the world. In March of 2004 Wicks sold VentureReporter and VentureSource to the Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal. Calacanis is currently a consultant to the Dow Jones corporation.

Calacanis is a highly regarded expert on issues related to media, finance, technology, the Internet and public policy. Calacanis regularly appears in the press and has been featured in and appeared on media outlets including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Wired, The Charlie Rose Show, 60 Minutes, CNN, CNBC, CNNfn, Bloomberg, Fox News, ABC News, and Nightline.

Based in Palo Alto, Jeff is the Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, a Venture Consulting firm serving the needs of the “software ecosystem”: startup companies, established vendors, venture capital firms and large IT buyers. He has spent over fifteen years in the software market, as an entrepreneur, a senior executive and a venture capitalist.

Prior to founding SoftTech VC, Jeff was the President of RVC Capital, the firm managing the Reuters Greenhouse Fund – the Corporate Venture arm of Reuters that has invested $560M in 82 companies since 1994, including Yahoo!, Verisign, Phone.com, and Infoseek. As the leader of US Operations, Jeff’s focus was on investing and managing the US portfolio, as well as supporting all companies in their commercial and business development efforts.

Jeff joined the Venture arm of Reuters from its product development division, where he was leading the development of the Risk Management and Desktop unit. He had direct responsibly for 250+ staff in Paris, London and New-York, developing a number of leading front and middle-office products. Jeff became instrumental in the development of the Reuters Open Systems product line since the early 1990’s, after its acquisition of Effix Systems, the Paris-based startup company he helped develop in 1989.

Henry grew up in Wooster, Ohio and in 1984 received a BA in history from Yale University after nearly failing courses in economics, math and computer science. Henry’s favorite books are The Innovator’s Solution and The Loyalty Effect. After working on Wall Street from 1984 to 19991 and as a journalist in Budapest from 1991 to 1998), Copeland founded Pressflex.com, the parent company to Blogads.com. Pressflex today serves as webmaster for nearly 100 newspapers and magazines across Europe.

In 1999, Currier founded Tickle, a 70-person online (social) media company in San Francisco where he serves as president. Through Tickle’s self-assessment tests, social networking and matchmaking services, 50 million Tickle members have answered over 7 billion questions. Some 50,000 new members join daily and the company has been profitable for nine consecutive quarters..com acquired Tickle in May 2004.

Previously Currier was a Battery Ventures associate, where, in 1994, he became an early website developer and investor. Prior to Battery, he worked at Hong Kong’s STAR TV, Asia’s satellite television broadcasting company.After graduating Princeton in 1990, he joined GTE New Ventures in Los Angeles, developing and funding broadband applications for the entertainment industry.

Outside of work, Currier has founded Richter Scales a 15-person San Francisco-based a-cappella singing group. He has hosted a TV show in Boston called High Tech Fever and sailed across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Dash is a recognized expert on the weblog medium and on the blogging industry, having appeared on television, radio and print in addition to having founded one of the earliest and most popular weblogs on the Internet. In addition, Dash has given presentations around the world speaking about the weblog medium, microcontent software, personal publishing, the future of weblogs and business applications of weblogs.

Prior to joining Six Apart as its first employee, Dash worked in online communications and technology development for the publishing and music industries, both as an independent consultant and most recently for the Village Voice.

Dash lives in New York City with his favorite dog, cat, and human.

Chris DiBona is the Co-Founder and Vice President of marketing for Damage Studios, a California based game studio developing a massively multiplayer game, Rekonstruction. Before starting Damage, Mr. DiBona was an editor/author for the popular online website slashdot.org and He is an internationally known advocate of open source software and related methodologies. He co-edited the award winning essay compilation "Open Sources", writes for a great number of publications and speaks internationally on software development and digital rights issues. His personal website can be found at http://dibona.com

Mark Finnern has worked for SAP, both in Germany and the U.S., as a product manager, consultant and developer. He currently manages the Collaboration Area within the SAP Developer Network. Mark is also the founder and host of the Future Salon co-producer of the Accelerating Change Conference 2004 (10th-12th of September at Stanford).