Presenter's

From Firefox to IE: Writing Extensions that Work Cross-Browser
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If you have an existing Firefox extension that you want to port to IE to expand your audience, or if you are just getting started with development and want to re-use as much engineering effort as possible across browsers, this session is for you.  Drawn from experience helping scores of companies port their Firefox extensions to Internet Explorer, this session highlights the common problems encountered and best practices for making extensions that work on both browsers.  Building a full-featured add-on for Internet Explorer often means writing C++ code, and we’ll share some samples to get you quickly started on all of the most common tasks.  We will also discuss the overall architectural approaches that work best (and which don’t work so well) when designing an extension for cross-browser.

Add-ons and Mashup Development: How to Leverage 3rd Party APIs Effectively
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Mashups are a popular way for Web applications to leverage 3rd party services, creating new and distinct applications and services. Mashups can also be created in the browser using add-ons using many of the same techiques. With access to powerful APIs and personal/protected data sources, add-on based mashups can go beyond the capabilities of current web-based mashups.

Lessons Learned developing add-ons for multiple platforms
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When you develop a browser add-on, one of the first decisions is which browser to support first.  Speed of development favors Firefox, market share favors IE, and many add-ons find a natural market in Safari or Opera users.  Most casual developers opt for speed of development, and most never find reason to expand beyond a single platform.

Companies that develop add-ons, however, usually find themselves needing to support multiple platforms in order to meet their business objectives.  Difficulties abound, here, largely due to the wildly divergent development models, restrictions, skills, communities, and lore that developers must grok in order to create stable, effective, and performant add-ons for each platform.

This panel of experienced cross-browser add-on developers will share and discuss the epiphanies and pitfalls that they have encountered along the way.  Come hear the war-stories and take away the practical lessons that will save you from repeating them!

Extending Internet Explorer 8
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Internet Explorer 8 offers a multitude of improvements and new features in its extensibility model.  These changes include modifications to the browser architecture as well as new scenarios for web service integration.  In this talk, developers will discover how to create and maintain powerful applications for Microsoft’s next generation internet platform.

• Learn about the updated architecture and design of Internet Explorer 8
• Extend existing web services with Accelerators, WebSlices, and Visual Search
• Providers Address compatibility scenarios for ActiveX Controls, BHOs, and other binary extensions
• Master best practices in constructing world-class applications

5 Min. of Fame
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Andy Warhol once said everyone gets 15 minutes of fame, well at Add-on-Con, we want to help. We are going to take one of the technical sessions and let you set the conversation. This means any company that wants to sell an idea to the audience gets 3 minutes to present followed by 2 minutes of QA.

Presenter's

State of the Mozilla Add-ons Universe
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This talk will take you on a journey through the thriving ecosystem of Mozilla and Firefox Add-ons. After sharing a brief history it will dive into a deeper exploration of Mozilla's add-on universe. The session will explore: How add-ons can act as core browser feature incubators; The ways that companies can build or complement their business models using add-ons; and, Future plans for the Mozilla Addons site

Investing in Add-on's
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This session is a panel featuring venture capitalists that have active investments in browser add-ons. Topics that will be explored range from the add-on business opportunity from the VC perspective to factors that they consider when evaluating add-on investments.

Distribution Strategies: Growing the pipe to grow adoption
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Add-on's benefit from distribution initiatives supported by the browser vendors. These channels collectively result in millions of new installs daily. To maximize the benefit of these browser-driven initiatives add-on vendors must work to fulfill specific requirements.

Additionally, add-on providers are looking to other distribution channels to help scale their userbase. This panel will provide insight into how to navigate these curated channels and discuss other distribution channels add-on vendors are pursuing.