Press Release: March 26, 2008
O'Reilly Money:Tech Conference Explores Intersection of Wall Street and Web 2.0 Technologies
Sebastopol, CA--"Financial markets are both much bigger and much more valuable than Web 2.0, and have been around a lot longer, but show many of the same patterns," wrote O'Reilly Media CEO Tim O'Reilly recently. "If the parallels between Web 2.0 and Wall Street are correct, we can divine some of the future Web 2.0 trends by watching what's already happened on Wall Street."
His assertion was one of the inspirations for the O'Reilly Money:Tech Conference, held in New York from February 6-7, 2008. The event was designed to provide a context and environment for pushing the boundaries of technological innovations in the financial industry and for examining their effect on investment opportunities. Social networking tools, data visualization and mining, unconventional sources of information, and other on-the-cusp Web 2.0 technologies are profoundly disrupting how Wall Street conducts business. The first-ever Money:Tech brought together over 400 professional investors and fund managers, researchers, technologists, entrepreneurs, analysts, and academics to raise the level of awareness and conversation around these changes.
"The conference is, of course, all about the confluence of Wall Street and Web 2.0," noted program chair Paul Kedrosky. "And what does that mean? Well, new ways of Web-2.0-style collaborating are changing money and investing, with the zero-sum game of Wall Street changing in the process. At the same time market mash-ups with new sources of web-based data--auctions, real estate, pricing, weather--are transforming the never-ending hunt for a money-making edge."
A collaborative event that melded thought leadership with practical discussions, Money:Tech included two days of plenary sessions, demonstrations, panels, and keynote presentations. The conference program featured wide ranging discussions from industry experts such as:
- Jim Cramer (TheStreet.com/CNBC): "Blogs, Boo-yah, and the Future of Financial Media"
- Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media, Inc.), James Altucher (Stockpickr), Graham Miller (Marketcetera), Steve Bate (FOLIOfn): "Open Source Finance: A Contradiction in Terms?"
- Michael Simonsen (Altos Research Corp.), Bruce Molloy (Connotate), Matt Jacobson (Connotate), Michael Sha (Wikinvest), Parker Conrad (Wikinvest), Fred Speckeen (AERS Terapeak Dataunison): "Data Demos: Real Estate, Wikis, and the Web"
- Alexander Saint-Amand (Gerson Lehrman Group): "Building An Expert Exchange: Networks in Decision-Making"
- Steve G. Steinberg (Steinberg Consulting): "Learning to Think Like a Financial Markets Hacker"
- Randall Winn (Capital IQ), Robert Passarella (Bear Stearns), Kevin Pomplun (SkyGrid), Renny Monaghan (Salesforce.com): "Building a Better Information Beast: What Will It Take?"
- Bo Cowgill (Google Economics Group): "Google as Prediction Market"
- David Friedberg (WeatherBill), Michael Ferrari (Weather Trends International), Robert S. Marshall (WeatherBug): "Do Something About the Weather: Make Money!"
- Richard Bookstaber (Author, "A Demon of Our Own Design"), Bill Janeway (Warburg Pincus LLC): "Risk and Financial Technology: Have We Gone Too Far?"
- Henry Blodget (Silicon Alley), Barry L. Ritholtz (Fusion IQ), Nouriel Roubini (RGE Monitor), Jonathan Glick (Gerson Lehrman Group): "Blogs, Analysts, and the Future of Equity Research"
- Steve Skiena (Stony Brook University): "Money, the Internet, and Jai-Alai"
- Cathleen Rittereiser (Alternative Asset Managers, L.P. (AAM) ), JP Rangaswami (BT Design), Sean Park (Sixth Paradigm LLP), Finbar Taggit (www.fintag.com): "What Do Hedge Fund Managers Really Want?"
Money:Tech's Sponsor Gallery featured the latest offerings from companies key to the finance market, allowing attendees to make connections and further their knowledge. Sponsors and exhibitors included: AGORACOM, Dow Jones, Capital IQ, Connotate, Gerson Lehrman Group, Good Morning Research, Kapow Technologies, Majestic Research, PredictWallStreet, Thomson Financial, Trade King, Yahoo! Finance, yoonew, and Zecco Holdings, Inc.
Announcements by participants were also made at the conference:
- AGORACOM announced that the site has recorded 26,802,451 page views in the first three full months since the launch of its wiki-powered "Investor Controlled Discussion Forums" on October 11, 2007.
- EventVestor: Anju Marempudi, a speaker at Money:Tech, announced the launch of eventVestor during his presentation aiming to become the most comprehensive data and analytics platform for event-driven investment analysis and business decision-making.
- LinkedIn announced it will launch a primary research service offering a new way to help its users gather information and tap experts for advice when they�re making decisions.
- TradeKing announced major new features to its ground-breaking TradeKing Community. In addition to its signature capabilities such as Certified Trades, the TradeKing Community now includes more powerful views into trader rationale through Trade Notes and a new "All-Star Trades" blog, offering "color commentary" and daily insights from TradeKing experts on actual member trades, as they happen.
- Wesabe launched an invitation-only preview to its "Automatic Uploader," which provides fully automatic updates to Wesabe accounts, and which does not require any downloads or software to be installed.
- Inkling Markets ran a prediction marketplace throughout the conference; results can be viewed at: http://moneytech.inklingmarkets.com/.
The debut event drew participants from around the world, innovators as well as established players, all interested in how to leverage new tools and gain a competitive edge in the markets. Money:Tech created a fertile environment for thinking about new ways that money and information change hands, comparing and contrasting tools, ideas, and other technology advances in the investment industry.
The second O'Reilly Money:Tech Conference will take place in February of 2009 in New York City. The dates will be announced soon.
For more information on Money:Tech, including agenda and speaker presentation slides, visit: http://conferences.oreilly.com/money
For articles, blogs, photos, and other coverage of the event, go to: http://www.oreillynet.com/conferences/blog/moneytech/
If you'd like to stay up to date on information relating to Money:Tech, sign up for the conference newsletter (login required) at: http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/nl/home#conferences
To view a video conversation between Tim O'Reilly and Paul Kedrosky on the future of finance and technology, visit: http://web20summit.blip.tv/file/438105/
For more information on the intersection of money and technology, read program chair Paul Kedrosky's blog, Infectious Greed, at: http://paul.kedrosky.com/
To read Tim O'Reilly's take on the future, go to the O'Reilly Radar at: http://radar.oreilly.com/
If you have ideas about areas you'd like to see included at a future edition of Money:Tech, send a message to: [email protected]
For information about exhibiting or sponsoring Money:Tech contact Sharon Cordesse at (707) 827-7065 or: [email protected]
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: [email protected]
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