WWW2007: Program

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The Web History Center is organizing a special Web History event to be co-located with WWW2007. There will also be a Web History Exhibit on display all week in the conference hotel (open to all attendees). Contributions welcome: please bring your historical materials to display! The main theme for the event is the history of electronic commerce, with other themes including the history of the WWW conference series and methods for preserving the Web's ephemeral history before it is too late.

The preliminary agenda for the event is given below. The event will start on Tuesday evening with a light reception, followed by some informal talks. People who do not already hold a Tuesday ticket for WWW2007 can add this event as an a la carte option on their registration form. The main part of Web History Day takes place on Wednesday, as a track within the WWW2007 conference.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

5:00pm-6:00pm: Wine and cheese reception in Riverview Lounge area, near Web History Exhibit in Ivor Petrak Room

6:00pm-8:00pm: Opening session for Web History Event
(location TBD: Alberta Room or Cascade Ballroom or Van Horne Ballroom)

Introduction by Marc Weber and Bill Pickett (co-founders of Web History Center), and Bebo White (initiator of first Web History Event in 1997). Recognition of any nominees into the e-Commerce Hall of Fame.
John Toole (CEO of the Computer History Museum) plus other leaders of the archiving community will speak on the importance of collecting history, and ask the WWW2007 audience to help out and save their stuff!
Marty Tenenbaum and Allan Schiffman (Web and e-Commerce pioneers and principals of CommerceNet)
Wendy Hall (Head of School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton) on the origins of the WWW conference series
Possible surprise speaker

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

7:30-8:30am: Web History Breakfast with Sir Tim Berners-Lee
(Alhambra Dining Room) (100 guests: by invitation only)
8:30-10:00am: WWW2007 Opening Ceremonies and Plenary Talk by Sir Tim Berners-Lee (Van Horne Ballroom)
10:00-10:30am: WWW2007 Break (President's Hall Foyer)
Web History Track: (Shaughnessy)
10:30-11:15am: Hermann Maurer (University of Graz): Mass-Market E-Commerce in the 1980s
11:15-noon: Marty Tenenbaum (CommerceNet) and Allan Schiffman (CommerceNet): The Difficult Birth of Commerce on the Web in the early 1990s
noon-1:30pm: WWW2007 Lunch Break (Van Horne)
1:30-2:15pm: John Toole (Computer History Museum), Bill Pickett (Web History Center), and Marc Weber (Web History Center): Tutorial: Saving Our Collective Memory
2:15-3:00pm: Gary Chevsky (Symantec): The Late 90s Commerce Explosion; Search's Quest to Become an Industry
3:00-3:30pm: WWW2007 Break (President's Hall Foyer)
3:30-4:15pm: David Chaum (Google) and Rohit Khare (4K Associates): Web Commerce Grows Up
4:15-5:00pm: Wendy Hall (Head of School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton) and Bebo White (SLAC, IW3C2 and Web History Center): The 14-year History of the IW3C2 and the WWW Conference Series. Starting with the "Woodstock of the Web" in 1994 in Geneva, and traveling around the world and through the Web's history in the years since. Closes with a general plea to all to go to the Web History Exhibit area and SIGN UP to contribute your own historic materials!
5:15pm: Mingle with speakers prior to WWW2007 Welcome Reception.

By bringing historical materials you will be helping the Web History Center, the International World Wide Web Conference Committee, and the Computer History Museum preserve our collective memory.

The Web History Center (http://webhistory.org) is mounting large timelines on the wall in the Exhibit area to which you can add photos, videos, documents, and recollections (paper-based wiki!), one for e-commerce and the other for the WWW conference series from 1993 on. We will have exhibit cases for objects and T-shirts, and 15 exhibit computers which can display your URL to material on those themes; historic software and sites are a special priority. We are also collecting general Web history material for the archives and for future Web History Exhibits. You can take items back, or clean out your storage space by donating them to the Web History Center or the Computer History Museum right at the exhibit.

We're looking for: Photos and screenshots; videos and audio recordings; T-shirts; documents; posters; mugs, pens, pins, and small historic artifacts of all kinds; floppies, disks, CDs, and other media; Web sites, programs, and screenshots; historic hardware-- but if you want to donate it and it's bigger than a toaster please let us know in advance. Contact Marc Weber (marc@webhistory.org) if you have any questions; we may be able to arrange shipping for rare items.

We are especially seeking:

screenshots of Minitel and other teletext screens, especially ones to do with purchases, paid services, and other e-commerce on those systems.
photos or video of the first Web History Day and Exhibit at WWW6 in 1997

We do have multiple copies of some WWW conference Proceedings and posters. So if you want to make sure we can use yours, please let us know which years you have.

Marc Weber, Co-Founder
The Web History Center http://webhistory.org
+1 415 282 6868
marc@webhistory.org
Computer History Museum, 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View, CA 94043, USA