The highly-anticipated program for the Semantic Technology and Business Conference (#SemTechBiz), June 2-5, 2013 in San Francisco has been announced. The conference returns to the Hilton Union Square for four comprehensive days of fresh insight and immersive learning from global experts. #SemTechBiz brings together today’s industry thought leaders and practitioners to explore the challenges and opportunities  impacting both corporate business leaders and technologists.

When asked about the program, Conference Co-Chair Eric Franzon said, “When we launched this conference in 2005, the discussion focused around a question: ‘We have this marvelous set of technologies. How can we use them practically?’ Today, we are in a very different place. With impressive case studies demonstrating cost savings, new revenues, and practical implementations, Semantic Technologies have become an important thing for technologists, executives, marketing experts, data professionals, investors, and other stakeholders to pay very close attention to.”

“In June, we will learn from the experience of those who have leveraged Semantic Technologies to make money, save money, gain more value from existing business assets, shorten development times, and solve very real problems. We will hear about how Semantic Technologies are being used to glean insight from ‘Big Data.’ ”

View the program here

Read more

The news of Facebook’s acquisition of mobile photo-sharing service Instagram for $1 billion this week may be fueling the dreams of tech start-ups of every stripe, including those in the semantic tech community. In fact, they may have even greater reason to be inspired: A recent  report has it that Instagram has been slowly rolling out an Open Graph integration for the app accomplished in collaboration with Facebook for seamlessly publishing photos to users’ Timelines in what may be the first of similar partner-deals down the road.

Other startups infused with semantic tech smarts may be on high lookout for funding opportunities as an important part of making those dreams come true. Thomson Reuters and The National Venture Capital Association this week released funding stats for the first quarter of 2012 that could put a bit of a damper on things: It found a 35 percent decrease by dollar commitments and a 9 percent decline by number of funds, compared to the first quarter of 2011. But, according to a statement by Mark Heesen, president of the NVCA, venture firms “appear to be more optimistic about the fundraising environment in 2012.”

Read more