PyCon – the largest annual conference related to the Python programming language – is almost here, and Google wants everyone to get excited about it.  The company made clear today that it will have a significant presence there and considers …

TED conferences are elite – and well-respected – events.  People are so eager to attend them that tickets costing $6,000 each are snapped up in no time at all.  Only now, videos of many TEDTalks will be available for free through Hulu and Hulu Plus.

Admittedly, this isn’t too huge a breakthrough in one sense; 886 video clips have already been posted at ted.com/talks, so anybody who knew what he (or she) was looking for was almost sure to find it.

Organizers of the JavaOne and Oracle Develop conference may be fielding more than a few emails and phone calls about refunds this afternoon.  Google, which was supposed to have a significant presence at the event, backed out today due to the lawsuit Oracle brought against it.

It used to be you spent five minutes registering for an event, and then showed up on the big day, went to a few workshops, drank two free Coronas, and went home.

Social media changes all of that, enabling events and their planners to have long-term, nuanced, shifting interactions with attendees.

I gave a speech last week in suburban Cincinnati to the Mid-American chapter of Meeting Planners International, titled “7 Ways to Use Social Media to Create Buzz-Worthy Events”.

Every year in March I make my annual trek to Austin to be part of the South By Southwest Interactive show, one of the biggest gatherings of people working in all aspects of the web in the world. For those who have been, they might describe the event as a simultaneous assault of information, networking and back to back parties. It has become the Everest of social media events, and in my fourth year of attending I realized that there are techniques for surviving a large event that I have been using and adding to each year.

A couple of important questions regarding Chirp – AKA the first Official Twitter Developer Conference – have finally been answered.  Would-be attendees now know which dates to be in San Francisco (April 14th and 15th) and how much money they’ll have to spend ($469).

These facts were posted on the official Chirp homepage today, and the first 100 tickets (out of a total of 800) were released, too.  Interest seems to be high so far.

The Consumer Electronics Association is hosting the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week, and WebProNews will be there to provide coverage. Last year we came away with about 25 video interviews and product demos. This year, our entire video crew will be out there, so expect a lot of good stuff.

Look for a lot of new innovations in mobile, television, cars, and apps. There will no doubt be a lot of cool things unveiled.

An interesting development has occurred in the story of the controversial FTC guidelines for sponsored blogging/social media. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has called upon the FTC to rescind the blogger rules, and has questioned the constitutionality of them. As you may know, there have been a lot people calling them an infringement on free speech.

The search industry has changed a lot since it was conceived years ago. The rate of change shows no signs of slowing down either. That’s one reason why it pays to keep up with the current trends and discussions surrounding the industry. One way to do this is through attending conferences. WebProNews attended and covered Search Engine Strategies in Chicago this week, and we’ve put together ten selections that can help you learn a thing or two for your own search engine marketing endeavors.

There was an interesting session on online video at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East, which WebProNews attended. The session was called "Video Search Marketing Beyond YouTube". The following tips come from a combination of presentations from that session from speakers: William Leake of Apogee Search, John McWeeny of TurnHere, and Eric Papczun of Performics.

A recent study found that 54% of businesses prohibit employee social media use completely. There are valid arguments supporting both sides of this debate. We’ve seen quite a few news stories in recent months about social media policies coming to light.

Update 2: Here is our exlcusive interview with Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra from the BlogWorld Expo this past weekend:

Twitter CEO Evan Willams made some comments at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that have some Twitter enthusiasts in debate. He reportedly said that he wants to retire the Suggested User List (SUL) as the company prepares to launch its highly anticipated "Lists" feature.

The closing keynote of the BlogWorld Expo this past weekend was set up like The Late Show. Guy Kawasaki came out and told some jokes in David Letterman fashion (complete with Late Show-like desk and chairs), then he introduced the audience to actor/comedian Kevin Pollak.

The BlogWorld Expo out in Vegas, which wrapped up over the weekend, attracted some major star power. One session in particular included Anthony Edwards (whom you may remember from films like Revenge of the Nerds and Pet Sematary 2, as well as the television program ER), and Jermaine Dupri, the man who brought us groundbreaking hip hop acts Kris Kross and Da Brat.

An interesting topic was discussed at the BlogWorld Expo in a session called the "Death and Rebirth of Journalism," which WebProNews attended.

It is an interesting time for email marketing right now. Though it is still a quite effective medium for marketers, there are many challenges to deal with. This was the subject of a session moderated by David Daniels of Forrester Research at the Shop.org summit in Las Vegas this week.