Coming Oct. 18: DiscoveryBeat 2010 speakers to explain the secret recipe for getting content noticed

VentureBeat is gearing up for our second annual DiscoveryBeat 2010 conference and are pleased to announce our first speakers.

Our conference on Oct. 18 — expanded to a full day of proceedings — will highlight the evolving landscape of discovery — the key problem of how to get your content noticed. Last year, it was complicated enough as app developers tried to make their wares stand out on Facebook and the iPhone. But now, with so many new platforms coming into the picture, app makers and their partners have to worry about how to get their content noticed on many different platforms at the same time.

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The speakers include Peter Relan, founder of incubator YouWeb; Sebastien de Halleux, co-founder of Playfish and vice president of business development at EA Interactive; Si Shen, chief executive of mobile social game platform Papaya Mobile; and Marc Gumpinger, chief executive of mobile social gaming platform Scoreloop. They will talk about the fundamental problem of discovery: How do you get discovered when there are 250,000 other publishers and applications fighting for users across diverse devices and interfaces, such as the PC, social networks, mobile phones, and tablets?

METRICS:
The Android platform is seeing a meteoric rise and now leads an oligopoly, which includes Apple as well as RIM. The stable order created by Apple has been abolished, and in this new cross-platform world, metrics become crucial.

MYSTERY:
A new era of mystery has begun. Yes, you still need to use things like traffic analysis, traditional PR, and the latest social marketing techniques. But policies and best practices are still being formed. Along with the iPhone and iPad, new operating systems are bringing with them new forms of behavior such as swiping and touching within native apps, moving away from clicking on links.

MONETIZATION:
It’s not enough anymore to just get “discovered.” Once you’ve been found, you have to translate free users to paid ones. How do you make that final step from discovery to conversion? That’s the billion dollar question the industry is turning to answer now.

The event will be at the Mission Bay conference center in San Francisco on October 18, with earlybird pricing available until Sept. 15.

Here’s our first set of speakers:

Peter Relan is founder of YouWeb and chairman of Aurora Feint and CrowdStar. Relan has been the subject of many VentureBeat stories because he has incubated leading-edge startups such as CrowdStar, one of the top makers of social games on Facebook, and Aurora Feint, which provides social networking for gamers on the iPhone and other mobile platforms. Last year, Relan spoke at DiscoveryBeat and unveiled Sibblingz, a YouWeb startup that lets developers create connected games on Facebook, the iPhone, and the web. Before starting YouWeb, Relan was founder and chief executive of Business Signatures, a behavior-based fraud detection technology. He was also the founding chief technology officer of Webvan and an early advisor to X.Com. He was also founding vice president of Oracle’s Internet division and the principal architect of OpenView at Hewlett-Packard.

Sebastien de Halleux is co-founder of Playfish and vice president of business development & strategic partnerships at Electronic Arts Interactive. De Halleux co-founded Playfish in 2007 to make social games on Facebook. The company was sold to Electronic Arts in November, 2009, for as much as $400 million. The transaction was one of the first indicators that social games on Facebook had reached a level of business significance that made the biggest players in the video game industry pay attention. At EA Interactive, de Halleux is in charge of distribution, monetization, business development, and relationships with key partners across several business units: Playfish, Pogo, and EA Mobile. At Playfish, de Halleux’s formal title was chief operating officer. Prior to Playfish, he was part of the team that incubated Nokia Ad Service, a business unit that helped make money from mobile traffic on 850 million Nokia mobile devices. He was also an early member of the team at Macrospace, which merged with Sorrent to become Glu Mobile. Under Electronic Arts, Playfish has now launched its FIFA Superstars and Madden NFL Superstars games on Facebook.

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Si Shen is co-founder and chief executive of Papaya Mobile. Shen’s company has created a number of Android mobile games and has also created a platform for adding social networking elements to mobile games. Before starting Papaya, Shen was the product lead for Google Beijing. She started her Google career as a product manager for search and mobile advertising at the company’s Mountain View headquarters. Papaya Mobile recently launched its Android App of the Day marketing program to help Android apps get noticed.

Marc Gumpinger is co-founder and chief executive of Scoreloop, which brings Xbox Live style features to mobile games. Users can challenge each other via Scoreloop to multiplayer challenges, share games with friends, and post online high scores. Gumpinger started his career as a freelance consultant for Apple before launching his first company, Plugware. He created a web-based real estate platform that was acquired by a German publishing group, and then he joined European venture firm Target Partners.

Getting content noticed is a challenge for everyone making apps. We’ll cover the topic intensely at DiscoveryBeat 2010.  Startups and big companies alike should consider entering our Needle in the Haystack discovery business idea competition. Early bird discounts are available until September 15. Sponsors can contact us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. To buy tickets, click on this link.