WebMediaBrands (WEBM)

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WebMediaBrands Acquires SemTech Conference and Semantic Universe Site
By Jennifer Zaino on Sep 19, 2010 07:00 PM

The Semantic Web Blog and WebMediaBrands – the publisher of this site and the producer of events including November's Semantic Web Summit -- are bringing Semantic Universe.com and the Semantic Technology Conference (SemTech) into the fold. WebMediaBrands has acquired these assets from Wilshire Conferences.

The acquisition, says Alan M. Meckler, Chairman and CEO of WebMediaBrands, sees two leading commercial forces in the Semantic Web world "joining together to help grow what we think is going to be one of the great next evolutions of the Internet.”

SemTech, founded and operated by Anthony Shaw and David McComb, is the largest conference in the world dedicated to the Semantic Web and Linked Data. The SemTech 2010 event in June saw a 30 percent increase in attendance, attesting to the upward trajectory of interest in semantic web technologies. In a press release at the time noting the growth in SemTech attendance, Shaw noted that it “has increased every year, even through the economic downturn. More importantly though, semantic technologies keep getting more robust and more widely deployed. There’s no longer any doubt that semantics will keep growing as an integral part of the web infrastructure.”

Shaw and McComb will continue as consultants and will take an active role in expanding and operating SemTech for WebMediaBrands in coming years, WebMediaBrands says.

The next SemTech is scheduled for June 2011 in San Francisco. But WebMediaBrands’ plan is to host additional SemTech events -- three or perhaps even four next year, on the West and East coast, and the U.K. or the European continent. Asia is potentially on the roadmap, as well.

Within the next month or two, web site visitors to Semantic Universe.com, the site hosting blogs, news, articles and other resources about the application of semantic technologies, can expect to be directed to The Semantic Web Blog. WebMediaBrands plans to maintain Semantic Universe's content archive for readers' convenience, and to continue to grow content on this site. Meckler told the Semantic Web Blog the goal is to make the Semantic Web Blog "the absolute go-to place to find out what’s happening in this fast-growing field.”

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.