July 18th 2008 | Jens C Brynildsen

Singularity begins

Yesterday the site for the worlds first large scale online web conference went live and ticket sales were opened. For three full days in October, up to 10.000 web professionals will meet at a virtual conference backed by physical conference hubs across the world for a one of a kind event.

Singularity is the brainchild of Aral Balkan, a well known figure in the Flash community. Aral is the originator of initiatives such as OSFlash.org, the ARP framework, SWX and the GAESWF Project. He is also a humorous and entertaining speaker that can both sing and dance. The idea of putting on a worldwide conference without a central venue other than the web is an intriguing idea, but it's never been done before. People will attend and speak from their home or via conference hubs set up across the globe. No air travel = no pollution, so this is a very environmentally friendly conference and a first of it's kind.

Despite Aral's Flash background, Singularity is not just another Flash conference. It's a Web Conference that spans more or less all topics relevant to web professionals, so make sure you check out all the speakers and their session topics. It's a stellar lineup with names such as Tim O'Reilly and Molly E. Holzschlag and many others. About 100 sessions will run parallel tracks throughout the three days. Pick any session you want and if there are overlaps, don't worry. All sessions will be recorded so you will be able catch everything you want. Technically, the conference is done using the Adobe Interactive Media Server and the technical backbone provided by event sponsor Influxis. Other sponsors include Lynda.com, Adobe, Yahoo, the BBC, Triptyk and AMEE - big names in the web world.

As the event approaches, we'll learn more about how the event will facilitate important conference features such as networking and social interaction between participants and hubs. Stay tuned for our interview with Aral in the coming month. Aral is also building the site on Google's App Engine and he has a blog at InsideRIA where he details the process of building the conference. If you take a peek at his Twitter feed, you can see that building conference 2.0 on web 3.0 beta software can be stressful at times.

Make sure you set aside time from October 24th to 26th this year. At only $99 for a wealth of useful knowledge, this will be an event you don't want to miss. Click here to read more about the event