The theme of this year's OSCON is "Open for Business." Times are tough, making open source technology a smart choice for staying competitive. It gives you the means to drive down costs while increasing system and staff efficiencies. In anticipation of the conference, we've lined up three free webcasts featuring OSCON speakers. And if you're planning to attend OSCON, you can save 40% off registration pricing right now. In celebration of Independence Day—and freedom from commercial software—we're offering the discount code os09jul4, good through July 7. Read more.

Ignite is coming to LA! As always speakers will get 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. We're going to be holding the geek event at Cinespace in Hollywood on 7/21. Submit a talk now. This will be the first Ignite in Los Angeles; it is co-hosted by LA Geek Dinner. The LA G33k dinner was kind enough to let us take over their July dinner to host the first Ignite. Read more.

Social networking sites face a unique economic challenge when it comes to monetizing the value they create. Any attempt to capture a piece of the value they create inevitably damages that value. Read more.

This purpose of this article is to introduce developers and data visualization specialists to Axiis, which is an open source data visualization project based on Adobe Flex and Actionscript 3. While you do not have to be an expert in Flex Builder or ActionScript 3, having experience in both will make understanding this tutorial easier. Throughout the article I will assume you are comfortable with the fundamentals of building an application with Flex, and understand some of the primary language constructs embodied within ActionScript 3 and the Flex SDK, primarily MXML and Binding. Read more.

The Secrets of Fireworks Photography — Big fireworks shows are thrilling to watch, and they make thrilling photo subjects. Because it's night photography, you'd think that all of the rules of shooting in low light would apply. Ha! This hack from Digital Photography Hacks wouldn't be necessary if that were so. Learn what to bring with you, details on setting up your camera, taking the shots, and of course it's also all about location, location, location. Read the secrets now!

Scott Berkun just posted a great rant titled, Calling Bullshit on Social Media. I suggest everyone read it. Berkun raises good points - and I agree the hype around social media warrants taking a critical look. Despite being in general agreement, there are a few areas I can't abide, starting with this statement: social media is a stupid term. Is there any anti-social media out there? Of course not. All media, by definition, is social in some way. Read more.

Think about Wikipedia, what some consider the most complete general survey of human knowledge we have at the moment. Now imagine squeezing it down to fit comfortably on an 8GB iPhone. Sound daunting? Well, that's just what Patrick Collison's iPhone application does. App Store purchasers of Collison's open source application can browser and search the full text of Wikipedia when stuck in a plane, or trapped in the middle of nowhere (or as defined by AT&T coverage...) Collison will be presenting a talk on how he did it at OSCON, O'Reilly's Open Source Convention at the end of July, and he spent some time talking to me about it recently. Read more.

I've had the opportunity to speak with quite a few of my industry colleagues in Europe during the past year, and it became increasingly obvious there was an opportunity to bring the Tools of Change for Publishing message to a European audience. So we've teamed up with the Frankfurt Book Fair to put on a special one-day TOC Frankfurt on Tuesday October 13, the day before the Book Fair begins. Read more.

Velocity 2009 took place last week in San Jose, with Jesse Robbins and I serving as co-chairs. Back in November 2008, while we were planning Velocity, I said I wanted to highlight "best practices in performance and operations that improve the user experience as well as the company's bottom line." Much of my work focuses on the how of improving performance - tips developers use to create even faster web sites. What's been missing is the why. Why is it important for companies to focus on performance? Read more.

The code for Adrian Holovaty's Everyblock has been released. The open-sourcing of the site's system were apart of the Knight News Challenge Program. Everyblock is a very impressive site that aggregates and geocodes local data -- news, crime, fire, restaraunt inspections and reviews - and then lets users define their interests down to the block-level. Read more.

A Corporate Guide For Social Media—Radar blogger Joshua-Michele Ross offers social media guidelines for business in a new O'Reilly Insights column on Forbes.com. "Social technologies turn many corporate policies upside down," writes Ross. And, he adds: " If you think these guidelines don't apply to you, you are probably already on the endangered species list." Check out O'Reilly Insights to learn how to build your company's social media policies. Read more.

The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, and Sarah Milstein, the 21st user of Twitter, is basking in some social media buzz and kudos with today's glowing reviews from Slashdot and Associated Press. "The 234-page guide is so helpful that many readers no doubt will tweet its praises and thank "@timoreilly" and "@sarahm" — the authors' Twitter handles — for helping people understand why Twitter is emerging as the Internet's most powerful communications vehicle since e-mail," writes Associated Press tech reporter Michael Liedtke. View a sneak preview on SlideShare.

Check the buzz:

• AP's Michael Liedtke, "...smart tips on how to post information and observations"
• Slashdot, 9/10, "...this may just be the best tool available"
• School Library Journal, "Best of all: nary a mention of Ashton or Oprah"