We would like to warmly welcome you to Beijing for the WWW2008 conference. After a short but influential history of 16 years, the WWW conference is being held in China for the first time, where Internet technology is becoming increasingly critical in almost all fields as China’s dynamic economy continues to grow at lightning speed. The advanced WWW infrastructure here connects the nation’s 1.3 billion people to the world, and the world can conveniently learn about China via the Web. We are fortunate to be holding the conference in one of the most attractive cities in the world. As the capital of China, Beijing is one of the world’s truly imposing cities. With a 3000-year history and 11 million people, Beijing has its own cultural characteristics and also integrates different local cultures of different districts. It is the political, cultural and economic center of China and you will find how lively the Chinese culture of thousands of years old can be in this single city.

Come face-to-face with those individuals who are shaping the Web of the future

Want to listen to the speeches from some of the most important figures in IT (and other important figures) in the same place? Here are some of the distinguished speakers featured at WWW’08.

• Dr. David G. Belanger – AT&T Labs Chief Scientist, Information & Software Systems Research V.P., AT&T Labs
• Sir Tim Berners-Lee – Director, World Wide Web Consortium
• Dr. Harry Shum – Corporate Vice President, Microsoft
• Dr. Kai-Fu Lee – Vice President of Engineering, Google
• Mr. Robin Li – CEO of Baidu
• Dr. Hsiao-Wuen Hon – Managing Director, Microsoft Research Asia
• Dr. William Chang, Chief Scientist, Baidu
• Dr. Andrei Broder, Vice President for Computational Advertising, Yahoo!

Participate in the best technical program of any conference on Web Technology

The quality of WWW2008 makes us feel proud! This is the first time for the International World Wide Web Conference comes to mainland China. And we are not going to let you down in this miraculous land. We have got more then 800 papers, and only 103 of them have been accepted so as to ensure the quality of the conference. To address important emerging areas, WWW’08 has introduced three new tracks: Social Networks and Web 2.0, Rich Media, and Internet Monetization. For more information about these referred papers, you need to come to the sessions!

We have also organized a new alternate track WWW in China. A recent report shows that China has the second largest number of internet users and the number is increasing rapidly. Only this data itself is attractive enough for the Web-related industry to pay intense attention to China. To satisfy your desire to learn the latest and most exciting WWW research and development in China, WWW in China will provide a forum for academics and industry to present and discuss the latest progress of Web technologies in China. The WWW in China track features a keynote speech by Robin Li, CEO of Baidu.

Increase your knowledge in a comprehensive flight of tutorials and workshops

We will organize many workshops that are intended to advance knowledge, research, development, and professional practice in new and emerging fields of Web activity, providing a more focused, in-depth, and interactive environment than is possible in a traditional conference session. We will bring together designers, developers, information architects, practitioners and researchers together to exchange ideas and experiences, establishing common ground in research areas or practical problems and resulting in new contacts, new opportunities for collaboration and new directions for future activity.

We also created the WWW2008 Tutorial Program that offers a stimulating and informative selection of tutorials reflecting current topics in Web technology and related issues. These tutorials will be presented by subject matter experts and will reflect the high academic and research standards of the WWW2008 conference.

Join the activities of the leading Web organizations

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), WOW (World Organization of Web Masters) and W4A (International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility), our well-known and important partners, will have separate special tracks or co-located conferences devoted to their current activities. They complement other WWW2008 track to enhance the richness of the overall program.

Dine in one of the architectural wonders of the world – The Great Hall of the People

The Great Hall of the People is an imposing structure standing on the west of the vast Tian’anmen Square in the center of China’s capital city of Beijing. It is the meeting place for the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative body, and its standing committee. Now this enormous building is open to the public when the national conference is not in session, and visitors are shown in a selection of routes. WWW2008 organizing team cordially invites you to join us in our spectacular WWW2008 banquet at this historical location that hosted many state banquets, and enjoy both Tim Berners-Lee’s visionary speech and magnificent Chinese cultural performances.

Get caught up in the Olympic fever sweeping Beijing

The Bird Nest: The Beijing National Stadium, also known as the bird’s nest will be the main track and field stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics and will be host to the Opening and Closing ceremonies. The stadium’s appearance is one of synergy, with no distinction made between the facade and the superstructure. The structural elements mutually support each other and converge into a grid-like formation – almost like a bird’s nest with its interwoven twigs. The spatial effect of the stadium is novel and radical, yet simple and of an almost archaic immediacy, thus creating a unique
historical landmark for the Olympics of 2008. What’s more important, this wonderful architecture is just next to Beijing International Convention Center, the WWW2008 venue!

Water Cube: The National Aquatics Centre, known as ‘The Water Cube’, will be one of the most dramatic and exciting venues to feature sporting events for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. We leave it to you to check if such a description is right, but, do remember to visit it in the evening!

Convenient Transportation: Beijing has good transport facilities. The Metro is convenient to use within the city and is being expanded as you read this. The road system is excellent and traffic runs relatively smoothly except during peak traffic hours in the morning and evening when people rush to and from work. Many parts of Beijing can be explored on foot. Also, the main shopping areas and most of the tourist attractions are easily reached by subway, taxi or bicycle. In fact, if you are the type of person who likes to explore on foot, some of the main areas could be visited on foot.
The bus system is extensive, comfortable and not crowded if you take the ones that have air-conditioning.

Immerse yourself in the magical culture of China

Peking Opera: The late 18th century brought the rise of Peking opera, under the patronage of the imperial court. It combines various theatrical
forms — including speech, music, acrobatics, dance, mime, and martial arts – to tell stories from Chinese history and folklore. Peking Opera
is one of the quintessences of China and it takes on strong characteristics of Chinese traditional culture. For the foreign guests, especially
those who are familiar with western opera such as Mozart’s Figaro’s Wedding and Verdi’s La Traviara, Peking Opera will surely renew the artistic
taste and evoke precious culture shock. And surely you can watch this amazing performance here in Beijing.

Chinese Acrobatics: Dating back to the Neolithic age and absorbing various characteristics of every dynasty, Chinese Acrobatics is indeed an
ancient and miscellaneous art. It is of popular origin, closely related to the everyday, but it also takes in many elements of dance, opera and
martial art. To sum up, Chinese acrobatics is full of imagination, variety and creativity.

Sightsee in one of the world’s greatest cities – wander through the Forbidden City and climb the Great Wall

The Great Wall: No body coming to Beijing will leave here without visiting one of the greatest wonders of the world, the Great Wall. It dates
back to the 3rd century BC, Qing Dynasty, built to protect China’s northern border. Consisting of impressive stones and earthen fortifications,
the enormous man-made dragon finds its way in numerous high mountains and lofty ridges. In 1987 it was designated a World Heritage Site by the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The Forbidden City: With a history of 600 years, Forbidden City was the residence and official site of 24 emperors of the Ming Dynasty and Qing
Dynasty. It covers an area of 72 hectares, consisting of 9999 rooms surrounded by a 10-meter high city wall which measures 960 meters long from
south to north and 750 meters wide from east to west. It is indeed of tremendous complex, and you will be shocked by the splendid sea of glazed
tiles and colorful wall paintings.

Temple of Heaven: Of many temples in the old city, Temple of Heaven might be the best known and most beautiful one. This complex includes two
circular ceremonial buildings with blue-tiled roofs, which were the shrines for China’s emperors to worship. The Alter of Heaven, a part of the
Temple, has splendid red walls and gold detailing, and is typical of the architecture of the Ming dynasty.
More? Too much to put here… you’ve got to come and see them with your own eyes!

Experience the exotic cuisine of China and Beijing

Chinese regard eating as an art, which is a comprehensive combination of sight, smell, touch, taste and even sound. Chinese cuisine is a dominant
branch from the Chinese culture – the core is taste while to preserve health.

Roast Duck: With its long history, Quanjude roast duck is well known among both domestic and overseas customers. The duck is hung in the oven and
roasted by flame burning from fruit – wood. The finished duck is characteristic with crispy skin, tender meat and the fragrance from the fruit- wood.
It looks wonderful and appealing with a full figure, even claret color and the brightness and shine on the duck skin. It tastes pure and mellow with
lotus leaf – shaped cake, scallion slices and sweet sauce jam, leaving a lasting and pleasant aftertaste.

Beijing Snack: It is said that there are over two hundred kinds of snacks in Beijing, combining varied flavors form different nationalities like Han,
Hui, Meng, Man and court snacks from the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty. Some of the dishes go well with wine, such as Quick – Fried Tripe, and some
others are for breakfast or as midnight snack, like Sticky Rice with Sweet Fillings and Rolling Donkey. There are also lots of famous restaurants selling
snacks. Fangshan Restaurant sells Sticky Rice with Sweet Fillings and Pea – Flour Cake; Donglaishun Restaurant sells Cream Fried Cake. In fact, besides
those big famous restaurants, you can also enjoy delicious snacks in some small restaurants.

Shop for gifts and memories of your attendance to WWW2008

There are many exotic and unusual things to buy in Beijing which make wonderful souvenirs and gifts for relatives and friends back home.
The following is a sample of the amazing range of goods available. Fascinating antique and curio shops and market stalls are to be found in certain
areas. Arts and crafts products make ideal souvenirs and gifts. These include bronze ware, folk toys, jade, kites, lacquer wares, pottery, seal,
prints and scrolls, silk, embroidery and printed fabrics.

There are a lot more wonderful and exciting things waiting for you to explore in both the WWW2008 conference and in Beijing, a dynamic modern metropolis
with 3,000 years of cultural treasures woven into the urban tapestry. WWW2008 will offer many amazing speeches on leading technologies, an opportunity to
get in touch with people with the same interests all over the world, and a fantastic experience in Beijing.

We believe that Beijing will prove to be a land of wonders to our dearest WWW2008 attendees. See you in Beijing!

Note: You are welcome to leave your comments by clicking on the “comments” link under each blog entry. Welcome to the blog for the WWW2008 Tutorials Program …

* The Tutorials Chair also maintains his own blog for WWW2008.

Welcome to the blog for the WWW2008 Tutorials Program. The purpose of this blog page is to give more in-depth and updated information on the tutorials program. Please do bookmark this page and site if you are interested in submitting a tutorial proposal, making a suggestion about the tutorials program, or gaining specific information about the program.

Tutorials have long been a vital component of the WWW conference series. Some of the first tutorials on technologies that we now take for granted today (e.g., Java) were presented at WWW conferences. Many attendees to past conferences have found their first exposure to important technologies and concepts have come through the conference tutorial program. Some Web “subject matter experts and gurus” got their start by presenting tutorials in the conference series. Therefore we can all benefit from an outstanding collection of tutorials.

• See Tutorials CFP and Tutorial Proposals Submissions.

Note: You are welcome to leave your comments by clicking on the “comments” link under each blog entry.

Welcome to the blog for the WWW2008 Workshop Track…

Welcome to the blog for the WWW2008 Workshop Track. The purpose of this blog page is to give a more in-depth and updated information on the workshop Track. The Workshops Chair also maintains his own blog at http://wiki.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/WWW2008/workshopblogs. Please do bookmark this page and site if you are interested in participating in the workshop.

By tradition, workshops often have been the avant-garde and forward looking event in a conference. Without an exception, it is my hope that we continue that tradition, which fosters and promotes dynamic interactions that not only envisioning the future of the web, but making it a reality.

Please note that due to an earlier than usual conference dates for WWW2008 (April 21-25, 2008), the deadline for submitting workshop proposals has also moved up to October 1, 2007 to ensure that each accepted workshop will have enough time to prepare and organize the event. In light of this, do plan ahead to make your proposal a successful one!

Lastly, do not hesitate to contact the workshop chair or deputy chair on matters concerning the workshop. With your support, let’s do our best to ensure an exciting workshop program in WWW2008.

I look forward to meeting you at WWW2008 in Beijing!

Best Regards,

Irwin King
WWW2008, Workshops Track Chair

•  See Workshops CFP and workshop proposals submissions site.

Research tracks (12 tracks)

• Browsers and UI
• Data mining
• Internet monetization
• Mobility
• Performance and Scalability
• Rich Media
• Search
• Semantic / Data Web
• Social Networks and Web 2.0
• Security and Privacy
• Web Engineering
• XML and Web Data

Alternate tracks (3 tracks)

• Industrial practice and experience
• Technology for developing regions
• WWW in China

Of the 15 tracks, 8 of them are small evolutions from last year:

• Search
• Data Mining
• Semantic Web
• Security and Privacy
• Browsers and UI
• Performance and Scalability
• Technology for Developing Regions (alternate)
• Industrial (alternate)

Of the remaining tracks, five are modifications of tracks that existed
last year:

XML and Web Data — now includes web services discovery, composition
and choreography.

Performance and Scalability — now includes SLAs and QoS issues in web
services.

Social Networks and Web 2.0 — last year, most of the submissions to
e-Applications fell into this category, so we’ve formalized the split,
and also extended the scope of this track to include recommender
systems and trust management. Papers that are primarily about the
structure of one or more social networks should be sent to this track,
while papers that are primarily about a data mining technique, even if
applied to a social network, should be sent to data mining.

Mobility — this is a modification of the “Pervasive Web and Mobility”
track from last year. The focus of this track is not simply on
adapting Web content for mobile devices, but also on enabling mobile
users to become important participants in the Web community: not just
passively accessing the Web, but also actively contributing rich media
content, and networking with other mobile and stationary users.

Web Engineering — this track now includes engineering issues for web
applications.

Finally, we have two new tracks:

Internet Monetization covers sponsored search, advertising auctions,
electronic markets, and broadly all research issues related to
monetization online.

Rich Media covers indexing and retrieval of Web rich-media content,
social media, algorithms and systems to deal with Web-scale media-data
analysis and management, as well as applications of Web rich media in
areas such as online advertising, online gaming, entertainment,
virtual worlds, social networking, education, and biomedicine.

The special track of “WWW in China” covers the WWW-related research
and development in China. A recent report shows that China has the
second largest number (162 millions) of internet users in the world
and the number keeps increasing rapidly. The track will include
refereed paper presentations, panels, and keynote speeches from some
of most influential leaders in China’s industry and academia. This
track will be the best venue for you to learn the latest and most
exciting WWW research and new trends in China.

My favorite quote so far:

If it’s visible, you fail.
        Bill Buxton

Over the past decade we have seen the web change in dramatic ways. Static html web pages are facing a stiff challenge from blogs and video clips. The notion of relations, networks, and reputation which were largely built on web page linkage have matured into community voting of sites and documents. Social network sites have become common and the notion of identity, trust, and reputation are commonly defined between users and the pages or objects they interact on. As eCommerce matures and blends with social networking search, classification, and recommender systems take new shapes. Social trust, reputation, and identity form key entities that help commerce thrive in the generation of the social web. Further, peer-to-peer networks provide for new platforms and challenges for search and social network structures. eBay, as one of the earliest known social commerce companies, provides a great context to study these concepts as applied to a marketplace. In my discussion I will touch upon many of the topics mentioned here as we have been studying them at the research labs.

I’ve been at Yahoo! for close to two years, aiming to build up a world-class research organization and expand our strengths beyond computer science to areas such as microeconomics and sociology. We are charged with developing the sciences that will deliver the next generation of business to Yahoo!, while helping to shape the future of the Web.

Yahoo! is in a nascent market, one where most of the technical and market action is still to come. The challenges we face do not have ready-made solutions – there is no common notion of the “sciences underlying the Web�?, or of the tools and techniques needed to address the grand challenges of our industry.

We must therefore ask: to develop the future of online interactive media, what sciences must we develop today? Do we identify and expand existing scientific disciplines, or do we try to build new ones that are not currently pursued at academic institutions? Are these disciplines centered on computer science, or should other disciplines be incorporated?

In my talk “Web N.0: What sciences will it take?�? on May 10, I hope to develop answers to these questions; these sciences appear to be a blend of the old and the new, of computer science and of the social sciences.

For those who want to browse the WWW2007 papers by authors’ affiliations, tracks, categories, and more, we have made a faceted browser from the WWW2007 data generously given to us from the WWW2007 organizers. We have also scraped information on papers at WWW 2001-2006 from ACM.org and included them in our faceted browser.

Note that this site has been put together using the Exhibit lightweight structured
data publishing framework, which will be presented at WWW2007 itself.

In 1997, the Web History Day and Exhibit was one of the most popular programs of the 6th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW6) in Santa Clara, California. This year, ten years after the original event, at the 16th Web Conference (WWW2007) in Banff, Canada, a reprise of this program will occur.  The conference will host multiple Web History-related events and a weeklong Web History Exhibit area for the benefit of conference attendees and where attending pioneers can donate historical materials and add recollections.

The 1997 event brought together many of the major pioneers of the early Web and hypermedia for the very first time, from Douglas Engelbart, Tim Berners-Lee, Brewster Kahle and Ted Nelson to authors of early browsers – Viola, Mosaic, Netscape, Cello, Internet Explorer, Midas and more (http://1997.webhistory.org/historyday). The hands on exhibit featured pioneering software and sites, from the first browser/editor running on its original NeXt cube to the White House site and HotWired. The program was co-organized by Web pioneer Kevin Hughes and Web historian Marc Weber with help from pioneer Jean-François Groff, at the invitation of conference organizer Bebo White.

At WWW2007, the Web History events will focus on the history of E-Commerce, with speakers from Marty Tenenbaum of CommerceNet to blogger Robert Scoble. Featured also will be a history of the conference series which began in 1994 at CERN. It will also bring attendees together with leaders of the museum and archiving communities, who are becoming increasingly convinced of the importance of collecting artifacts from the early days of the Web and documenting the historical evolution of Web technology. The preliminary event program can be seen at  http://www2007.org/webhistory.php.

The organizers of this year’s Web History Day include many of the same persons involved with the original program—Marc Weber, Bebo White, Kevin Hughes, and Jean-François Groff– with some additions.  In the past year Marc Weber and Bill Pickett have co-founded The Web History Center, www.webhistory.org, which has absorbed Weber and Hughes’s older Web History Project and adds key pioneers like Robert Cailliau and Marty Tenenbaum to its Advisory Board.

You are invited to look at the Web History Center Web site. The Center’s goal is to attract attention to the need to save records and memories of the origins and development of the Web, and to put individuals and organizations that have such materials in contact with archives and museums (twelve such institutions have joined as members of the Center) who are interested in preserving and making these materials available to researchers and educators.

Concurrently, the Center is creating a digital library that will ultimately become a definitive resource on the history of the Web. This library will allow anyone with an Internet connection (students, researchers, entrepreneurs) to view original documents, videos, and images.
The Center is working with Bebo White to bring together and find an archival home for the records of the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2).  The history of the Web Conference series closely parallels the evolution of Web technology and the activities of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). White is a member of the Web History Center’s Advisory Board and serves as liaison with the IW3C2 and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), home of the first Web site in the United States.  Anyone having materials relevant to any of the above categories are invited to contact White, Weber, or Pickett.

For the Web History event at WWW2007, we are especially interested in items from past conferences that can be included in the exhibit—the original sites, posters, T-shirts, pins, badges, printed collateral, and more. As a part of the conference program, the WHC is sponsoring a weeklong exhibit and hosting a light buffet reception on Tuesday night to open the event and introduce key speakers. Wednesday’s plenary address by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, co-organized by the WHC and WWW2007, will provide an opportunity for him to reflect on both past and future. Finally, all day Wednesday, the main Web History track will feature speakers on the history of E-Commerce, the conference series, and ways of preserving and making public the Web’s history—both past and ongoing. Please join us!

Even though I have a background from academia, I haven’t read too many research papers and especially not recently. That’s one reason why it was especially fun to be on the program committee for papers to WWW’2007. I read eight papers and learned a lot about new and interesting ideas. Afterwards I heard that only one of the papers I read was accepted. I was positive to most of my eight, but the level was obviously very high and only my very favorite made it. It’s called “Introduction and Evaluation of Martlet, a Scientific Workflow Language for Abstracted Parallelisation�? by Daniel Goodman.