Nitobi's PhoneGap is People's Choice Winner of Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco Launch Pad

Five Finalists Present On Stage for Real-Time Feedback from Judges and Audience Attendees

SAN FRANCISCO, April 2 /PRNewswire/ -- O'Reilly Media, Inc. and TechWeb, co-producers of Web 2.0 Expo, Web 2.0 Summit and Gov 2.0 Summit, today announced the People's Choice winner of the Launch Pad startup program. Nitobi's PhoneGap, one of five on-stage presenters, was selected as the People's Choice Winner on Thursday, April 2 during Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco at Moscone West.

Launch Pad, sponsored this year by Microsoft BizSpark, is a unique public forum for unveiling distinctive new companies and products. Web 2.0 Expo hosts the Launch Pad program to showcase the best Web 2.0 startups and provide a unique public forum for unveiling new companies and products. Web 2.0 Expo is the leading global gathering of developers, designers, marketers, and business professionals building the next generation Web. For more information visit: www.web2expo.com/sf.

Nitobi's PhoneGap, http://www.phonegap.com/, the winning startup, is an open source development framework for building mobile applications with JavaScript. PhoneGap allows users to author applications in HTML and JavaScript and still take advantage of native mobile device capabilities like geo-location, camera, vibration and sound. PhoneGap applications run on iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

"We're excited that the audience was enthused about open source mobile phone development with web technologies," said Andre Charland, CEO of Nitobi. "We feel honored to be selected as the People's Choice winner of today's Web 2.0 Expo Launch Pad." Voting was conducted via a real-time SMS system where the audience was asked to select the company of their choice.

"There was great participation in this year's Launch Pad and we are really pleased with all five companies that presented today at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco," said Brady Forrest, Web 2.0 Expo Co-Chair. "We appreciate the friendly competition that took place on stage and want to applaud Nitobi's PhoneGap for capturing the audience with their innovation. We'll look forward to their successes in the future."

A forum for creativity, engineering, and innovation, Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco includes a multi-track conference, an "unconference" program called Web2Open, a major tradeshow, and multiple networking events. Web 2.0 Expo will hold its New York event November 16-19, 2009 and will return to San Francisco May 3-6, 2010.

To learn more about the 2009 Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco visit: http://www.web2expo.com/sf

To see articles, blogs, and other coverage of this year's event, visit: http://www.web2expo.com/webexsf2009/public/content/news-coverage

Watch video of past Web 2.0 Expos in San Francisco, New York, and Europe at: http://web2expo.blip.tv/

To read Tim O'Reilly's take on the future on the O'Reilly Radar, visit: http://radar.oreilly.com/

If you have ideas about areas you'd like to see included at the conference, send a note to: idea@web2expo.com

If you'd like to stay up to date on information relating to Web 2.0, sign up for the conference newsletter: http://newsletter.web2-0expo.com/

About O'Reilly

O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly has been a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism. For more information, visit: http://www.oreilly.com/. O'Reilly is a registered trademark of O'Reilly Media, Inc. Other products mentioned may be trademarks of their respective companies.

About TechWeb

TechWeb, the global leader in business technology media, is an innovative business focused on serving the needs of technology decision-makers and marketers worldwide. TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed media brands in the business technology market. Today, more than 13.3* million business technology professionals actively engage in our communities created around our global face-to-face events Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat and VoiceCon; online resources such as the TechWeb Network, Light Reading, Intelligent Enterprise, InformationWeek.com, bMighty.com, and The Financial Technology Network; and the market leading, award-winning InformationWeek, TechNet Magazine, MSDN Magazine, Wall Street & Technology magazines. TechWeb also provides end-to-end services ranging from next-generation performance marketing, integrated media, research, and analyst services. TechWeb is a division of United Business Media, a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $2.5 billion.

*13.3 million business decision-makers: based on # of monthly connections

SOURCE: TechWeb

Web site: http://www.web2expo.com/sf/

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