Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and James Cameron all at the D8 Conference
Despite having just returned from a lengthy journey in Malaysia and Singapore, I boarded yet another plane and headed to Rancho Palos Verdes, California to sit in on the eighth annual D Conference. The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference was launched in 2003 and quickly became the most innovative digital symposiums. Creators and executive producers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher do a fine job of bringing together the most influential figures in media and technology. I’ve attended five of these fascinating conferences and feel that they help me to stay well informed in this ever-changing digital world.
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- I ‘planepooled’ to the conference with AOL executives. Even on the flight they were busy with their Blackberries.
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- In California, the bougainvillea were blooming brilliantly along the roadside.
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- And so were the nasturtiums.
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- A solitary cabbage palm graced this view of the Pacific Ocean.
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- An hour south of Los Angeles, right on the pacific ocean – having come from an inclemently hot NYC, I was surprised about the cool ocean breezes – refreshing!
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- Our destination was the Terranea Resort.
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- The grounds are so beautiful.
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- The terracotta tiles looks so great against the blue Pacific.
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- The accommodations were quite lovely.
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- Walt Mossberg is the author and creator of the weekly Personal Technology column in The Wall Street Journal.
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- Steve Jobs looks great! He really wants to be number one in hand-helds, ahead of Nokia and Rim.
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- Apple has already sold over two milliion iPads. That’s one every three seconds!
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- Apple has sold over five billion apps in their app store!
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- Apple’s market value is around $222 billion, higher than Microsoft’s $219.2 billion. Apple is the most valuable technology firm in the world. It’s also the second-largest US stock by market value, behind oil company Exxon Mobil Corp.
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- Creators and executive producers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher put the industry’s top players to the test at D8, the eighth annual conference.
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- Comcast COO Steve Burke discussed the NBC purchase.
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- iPads galore!
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- DreamWorks CEO Jefffrey Katzenberg spoke about how great the Apple iPad is as a learning tool for everyone, including toddlers.
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- This device is called Project Natal from Microsoft, its new gesture-based controller for the Xbox.
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- Molly O’Donnell – Director of Marketing Communications for the Xbox Team – talked about Natal.
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- Kara’s son, Louie, came on stage to contribute to the demo.
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- A great discussion about the future of National Public Radio with CEO Vivian Schiller, who was erudite and compelling.
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- Kno co-founders Babur Habib and Osman Rashid take the stage to showcase the Kno. They say 90 people have been working for a year on the Kno.
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- The Kno is revealed. The device is large, with two 14-inch screens that open like a book. They say their hope for the Kno is to change the way students learn.
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- EBay CEO John Donahoe talked about the digital wallet and online retailing. EBay is an online marketplace selling merchandise from big or small retailers.
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- Donahoe’s hedCut drawing
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- Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski’s hedCut
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- Julius Genachowski talked about issues with the National Broadband Plan.
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- Chairman and CEO, Revolution Co-Founder Steve Case – Former CEO of AOL – talked about his past secret plan to buy Apple.
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- Everyone in the audience seemed to be tweeting or blogging.
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- Here is the young 26-year-old Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.
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- Zuckerberg defended Facebook’s privacy policies.
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- Informed analysts value Facebook at 25 billion dollars!!!
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- Facebook has 500 million users and is incredible and powerful.
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- He rarely takes this off his sweatshirt, but he was being grilled so intensely regarding privacy policies, that he started to sweat. Inside his hoodie was a graphic illustrating his company’s mission and logo.
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- This cute guy bakes his wife’s birthday cake every year and this is the second year he has shown me a photo of it – this time on his iPad. It looked delicious!
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- Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal’s San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector.
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- Avatar’s James Cameron spoke about his involvement with under water filming of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
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