NetGain News

Meet the Next Wave of Innovation at SIIA Previews Boston

Thu, 05 May 2011 21:35

SIIA Previews highlights innovative, early-stage content companies that we expect will have an impact on the industry. For SIIA NetGain, we’ve chosen local companies from the greater Boston area. Each company CEO will provide a 5-minute presentation followed by 5 minutes of Q&A. During the conference breaks that follow their presentations, each Previews company will have a table-top display to answer additional questions from conference attendees.

We are proud to announce this year’s SIIA NetGain Previews Presenting Companies:

• Cambridge Semantics – gives business users the ability to access data sources on their own terms and in their own language.
• ImageRights International - helps protect your images from copyright infringement and turn image theft into revenue.
• Pubget – makes scientific research easier by simplifying the process of finding, managing and analyzing scientific papers.
• RAMP –  is an advanced Content Optimization SaaS platform providing publishers with workflow, discovery and engagement solutions to drive monetization of online content to users’ search and browsing behavior.
• Yesware -  is a venture-backed startup building services to help salespeople close more business.

Next Stop MIT Media Lab!

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:17

During day 2 of SIIA NetGain delegates will visit three leading innovators in the Boston area. Stop 2 – MIT Media Lab, will give us an inside look on creative projects and research in the information space. These sessions are only available by attending NetGain. Register Now:

Fluid Interfaces
Speaker: Pattie Maes, Associate Professor of Media Technology

The Fluid Interfaces research group is radically rethinking the ways we interact with digital information and services. They design interfaces that are more intuitive and intelligent, and better integrated in our daily physical lives. They investigate ways to augment the everyday objects and spaces around us, making them responsive to our attention and actions. The resulting augmented environments offer opportunities for learning and interaction and, ultimately, for enriching our lives.

Software Agents
Speaker: Henry Lieberman, Research Scientist

The Software Agents group investigates a new paradigm for software that acts like an assistant to a user of an interactive interface rather than simply as a tool. Agent software can learn from interaction with the user, and proactively anticipate the user’s needs. They build prototype agent systems in a wide variety of domains, including text and graphic editing, Web browsing, e-commerce, information visualization, and more.

Information Ecology
Speaker: Henry Holtzman, Research Scientist, Chief Knowledge Officer, Co-Director, Digital Life

We have become reliant on digital information for communication, commerce, and entertainment. This information must be readily available, whether stored locally on our computers, on enterprise servers at work, or via third-party services like GMail. Most importantly, we should have choices beyond desktop computers or smartphones to access it. The Information Ecology group explores ways to connect our physical environments with information resources. Through the use of low-cost, ubiquitous technologies such as sensors and consumer electronics, they are creating seamless and pervasive ways to interact with our information-and with each other.

Comparative Media Studies
Speaker: Ian Condry, Associate Professor of Global Media, Director, Social Media Initiative

Using analytical tools and creative production of the social sciences, arts, and humanities to understand the impact of media in society and the ways social practices transform the uses of media technologies. Comparative Media Studies is an interdisciplinary group of faculty exploring the frontiers of media and society. Through international, ethnographic, computational, historical, and artistic methods, we examine how social worlds contextualize and alter the potentials of media. For example, the Social Media Initiative aims to activate the emerging possibilities of the social in media, extending analysis away from technological platforms themselves towards questions of how social innovation emerges through technology’s use in living social networks amid the diversity of human experience.

Lifelong Kindergarten
Speaker: Mitchel Resnick, LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research, Academic Head, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, Co-Director, Center for Future Civic Media

The Lifelong Kindergarten group is sowing the seeds for a more creative society by engaging people in creative, lifelong learning experiences. They develop new technologies that, in the spirit of the blocks and fingerpainting of kindergarten, expand the range of what people design, create, and invent and what they learn in the process. The group’s ultimate goal is a world full of playfully creative people, who are constantly inventing new possibilities for themselves and their communities.

Be prepared to be wowed!

Opening Keynote: The Changing Nature of Business Shopping

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:44

We are excited to announce Brian Halligan, HubSpot CEO & Founder, as our Opening Keynote Speaker for SIIA NetGain, May 17, at the Hyatt Regency Boston.

HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing software platform for small and medium-sized businesses. Their marketing application enables their customers to leverage disruptive effects of the Internet to “get found” by more prospects and to convert a higher percentage of prospects into customers. Currently, more than 4,000 companies use HubSpot to generate more than 500,000 leads per month.

During his keynote, Brian will address how YOU and YOUR COMPANY can stay ahead of the curve — and even make money — despite the changing nature of business shopping. You won’t want to miss his discussion on how you can leverage new customer buying trends around keyword searches, blogs and other social media outlets.

For more on the SIIA NetGain schedule and speakers visit http://www.siia.net/netgain/2011/.