Ever since I first hatched the idea for a global web conference, I've had nothing but the most encouraging support from my family, friends, fellow speakers, and the community at large. Thank you all for your sheer enthusiasm, passion, and support. It moves me when I think that everyone on the sponsors list basically came on board immediately after hearing about Singularity.
I am humbled to have the support of friends whom I revere. Speaking of those friends... let's start with our platinum sponsors: Influxis and lynda.com (and our third platinum sponsorship slot is also taken but I can't officially mention them yet!)
Influxis are Flash Media Interactive Server hosting specialists and ardent supporters of the Flash community. They're also very cool dudes and have been supporting our Flash band, Phlash 5, from day one, sponsoring our gigs in Hollywood and Amsterdam. When I mentioned that Singularity was going to use Flash Media Interactive Server and that we were looking to handle up to ten thousand concurrent connections to stream real-time video, audio, and data, Jerry Chabolla at Influxis basically replied with "dude, don't worry, we've got your back!"
To quote Influxis co-founder Richard Blakely:
This is the kind of stuff that makes history, we are glad to be able to help out.
That's so cool to hear guys, you rock!
I know that I sleep easier knowing that Influxis are handling our FMIS hosting and my good friend Ayo Binitie, who is heading up development on the FMIS side of things at Singularity, was delighted when he heard that we would be hosting with them. (And Ayo knows his FMIS -- he wrote one of the first books on FMIS, back when it was called Flash Communication Server MX, and he's been actively developing with it ever since.)
What can I say about Lynda Weinman that hasn't already been said better by people far more important than I? Lynda is a pioneering web developer, author, teacher, and founder of lynda.com. She's also a wonderful friend.
I first heard Lynda's name about a decade ago while on the MFA program at American University in Washington, DC. I was teaching multimedia courses as an adjunct professor while studying for my degree and chose her excellent Hands-On-Training books for my classes. I learned and taught a substantial amount during those years from lynda.com books.
And then there was Flashforward: the original Flash conference and the standard by which others are judged today.
I remember attending my first Flashforward and sitting in Branden Hall's talk, thinking: "I want to do that one day." I also remember Josh Davis taking his shirt off during his talk to show us his tattoos. And, even though I was lucky enough to eventually get the chance to speak at numerous Flashforward conferences, I still don't have the courage to take my shirt off... which I've been told may actually be a positive thing for the audience! 
Needless to say lynda.com and Lynda herself are inspirations to me. I am honored and humbled to call her a friend and moved by her support.
Today, lynda.com are concentrating their efforts on their excellent online training library that covers a range of topics including Flash, Dreamweaver, Flex, Photoshop, HTML, CSS, web design and development, and web graphics. Basically, one subscription gives you access to a whole library of knowledge and the luxury to learn at your own pace.
I really love Yahoo! and it may have a thing or two to do with the cool bunch of friends I have at Yahoo! UK. Even before Yahoo! became a sponsor, I was honored to have them as speakers. Mike Davies, Christian Heilmann and Steve Webster are both friends and inspirations. I've learned heaps about web standards and accessibility from them in the past few years. And Yahoo! UK has been awesome in its support of the community: organizing Hack Days, BarCamps, and supporting the geek community.
Yahoo!, and more specifically, the Yahoo Developer Network are venue sponsors for Singularity and will be helping us host and organize the local conference hub in London. Sophie Major (a fellow Brightoner and head of YDN Europe) and I are currently looking for a cool venue in which to hold the event so if you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments.
(And follow the articles I'm going to start posting on O'Reilly InsideRIA where I will be chronicling how we develop the new Singularity web site and the conference application as I'll be talking about how we're using the excellent new Yahoo! GeoPlanet API from Yahoo Developer Network.)
The Beeb isn't just about old media. Sure, it's one of the most trusted news sources and quite possibly the most highly respected media institution in the world but it also has a geeky side in the form of BBC Backstage, headed up by my good friend, fellow geek, and Diabolo expert Ian Forrester.
Ian is a cornerstone of geek social events, and, under his leadership, BBC Backstage has been a passionate supporter of the geek community in the UK. Thus, it came as no surprise to me when he graciously jumped on board to support Singularity and it's an honor to have BBC Backstage as a venue sponsor. BBC Backstage will be hosting the local conference hub in Manchester.
Triptyk is a Belgian company offering training, development, and consulting services to clients who develop online and offline Rich Internet Applications with Flash Platform technologies.
One of Triptyk's founders, Gilles Bertrand, is a friend whom I first met while teaching one of my courses in London. We've since kept in touch and he has been very supportive of my various projects (he translated the SWX documentation into French, among other things.)
Triptyk is a venue sponsor and is organizing a local conference hub in Belgium.
AMEE is the world's energy meter. It's "a neutral aggregation platform to measure and track all the energy data in the world." It is also an API that provides measurement, CO2 conversion, profiling and transactional systems.
One of the core characteristics of Singularity is that it is an environmentally-friendly (call it "green", if you will) conference. By having speakers and attendees meet at local conference hubs and having the sessions presented live over the Internet we are creating a conference that is at once global and local. And we're saving on thousands of flights by not having attendees travel to a single geographical location.
I mentioned all this to Gavin Starks when I met him at the XTech conference recently and he was very supportive. He told me that initiatives like Singularity that "lead by example" are necessary if we are to tackle global warming. He also granted us access to AMEE's API and AMEE is sponsoring Singularity as a technology partner. One of the cool little visualizations we're working on is a carbon visualizer that will show us exactly how much carbon we're saving with Singularity.
You?
You may have noticed that we're doing things differently with Singularity and sponsorships are no exception. I've chosen to limit sponsorship to three platinum sponsors (which we now have), and five regular sponsors (which we're still looking for) so that sponsors will get maximum exposure during the conference. We have an unlimited number of venue sponsorships available so if your company wants to organize a local conference hub in your area, please do get in touch. It's an excellent chance to get exposure in your local community as well as globally. Besides providing a venue to interact with the global conference, local venues are encouraged to hold their own talks and to localize the event with their communities (or you could sponsor a party or other social event around the conference.)
Finally, when ticket sales open on July 1st, we will also be accepting micro sponsors. This is your chance, as an individual or small company, to sponsor Singularity for not much more than the cost of a ticket and to get recognition on the Singularity web site. I'll have more details on micro sponsorship soon.
To find out more about sponsorship, take a look at the sponsorship page on the Singularity web conference site.
Thank you again to our wonderful sponsors: I appreciate your support and friendship.
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