Webciety Forum gets to grips with the digital future

Hamburg. The CeBIT display category "Webciety" in Hall 6 mirrors the current developments in online business and our web-based society. From 2 to 6 March 2010 the Webciety Forum will get to grips with the key issues relating to our digital future. More than 100 speakers are expected to contribute to the forum program. Webciety 2010 will be even more international than in the past - as evidenced in the fact that more than half of the lectures will be delivered in English.

The Internet as a driving force behind social change

The Internet plays a central role in modern-day society. According to the IT industry association BITKOM, three quarters of all German households already had access to the Internet by the end of 2009. Social networking sites are gaining in popularity. Every day thousands of users update their profiles, send messages and upload photos to online platforms such as Facebook, Xing and StudiVZ. Consumers are now in a position to rate products and services with a click of a computer mouse. Thanks to the Internet, private individuals can voice their opinions and directly influence market developments.

The Webciety Forum will consist of lectures, discussions, fireside chats and interactive live broadcasts. Entertainment slots and open stages will transform Webciety into a "join-in" event, where visitors are encouraged to make an active contribution. The forum program will be broken down into four thematic areas:

Personal Branding & Identity

The focus here will be on the importance of personal reputation and authenticity in social networks. The discussion topics will include the real-time web, attention economics, social media monitoring and reputation management, branded entertainment, and media skills. One of the many highlights will be the panel discussion on Friday 5 March featuring Sascha Lobo (Germany's best-known blogger), Natasha Friis Saxberg (social media expert from Denmark) and Marcel D'Avis (head of customer service at the broadband service provider 1&1).

Collective Influence & Mind

In this thematic area the CeBIT visitor can discover the most effective ways to spread content and opinions via the Internet. The spotlight will be on new forms of advertising (viral marketing), e-commerce models for social networks, and crowd sourcing services. The term "crowd sourcing" describes the delegation of development tasks to informal communities ("crowds") on the Internet, thus bypassing in-house employees. The following panel of experts is expected on Wednesday 3 March: Ossi Urchs (Internet expert), Susanne Fittkau (social researcher and managing director of Fittkau & Maas) and Robin Hamman (London-based social media expert

Share & Network Economy

The third thematic area will examine (among other things) the underlying principles of electronic bartering and the defining features of the so-called "app economy". In addition, discussion will centre on new web-based business models and current developments in mobile business.

Living in the Cloud

The fourth thematic area of Webciety 2010 will present up-to-the-minute web content management solutions, collaborative technologies and social CRM applications. On Thursday 4 March representatives of Amazon and Google will team up with Internet expert Dion Hinchcliffe to talk about the latest developments in cloud computing.

These four thematic areas will be augmented by further panel discussions on various subjects of immediate future relevance - for example, augmented reality, next generation web video, mobile computing and social gaming. The provisional program of Webciety 2010 can be found at: www.webciety.de