Tim Bray

Tim Bray was worth the price of admission to the conference.  He basically had one message:  simplicity is goodness.  His slides are on his website, but they might seem like a random collection unless you heard how he tied it together.  Here's his slides:  https://tbray.org/sells.html

1.  Basically the first few links provide statistics about RSS and blogging.  His point:  this is a highly successful XML format.

2.  Starting with ICE his slides are about previous efforts to exchange news feeds.  His point:  though clever, backed by standards bodies, by big companies, all these failed.

3.  The next few slides are about simplicity.

4.  Then, the sting:  All these WS- schemas look to Tim like new examples of clever, well-backed, but overly complex standards, as contrasted with the highly successful, simple XML 1.0 and RSS.

The other subtext to his remarks were that it is the data, not the code that interprets the data is the important bit.

The message was good, but Tim was great:  well-spoken, clear, and concise.  Basically like the standards he advocates:  simple.