Valleywag writer Megan McCarthy IMed me from today's Widgets Live conference, the first con held by blog network GigaOM: "This conference would be so much more exciting if it were about midgets." Later, we chatted about the event:

Hey, just wanna alert you all that no, Bono is not at this week's DEMO conference in San Diego. There's just some dude who actually looks more like Robin Williams wearing a VR helmet. He fooled plenty of attendees, including PC Mag writers, who later figured out that the U2 star is actually in New York this week. (Is the conference worth going to anyway? No.)

Gizmodo editor Brian Lam is camping out today at the Web 2.0-heavy DEMO Conference, an orgy of product demos, promising his readers some liveblog action. So far there're no DEMO details on Gizmodo, but BLam keeps e-mailing me potshots. The above is the dude fumbling his Thinkpad while demoing software product MojoPac. BLam says:

The organizers of the recent Future of Web Apps Summit (a chance for speakers to talk about the past of web apps) recently e-mailed to ask what I thought of the summit. Well I didn't go; neither did you, you have a day job. But the e-mail says I could "win a luscious 23 inch monitor!"

Are you at the exciting Future of Web Apps Summit? Oh, you have work to do instead? Well the founder of community site Metafilter is there, and he's heckling over IM:

PC Forum, the long-running tech conference, is shutting down, according to inside sources.

Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard have always been, well, less than friends. As one journalist puts it, "'Mortal enemies' doesn't even begin to cover it." But the platform developer loves a good conference — as evidenced by JavaOne and Supernova. So, according to a tipster, they did the business equivalent of Scarlett Johanson borrowing lipstick from Lindsay Lohan.

Disappointingly, workshop attendees at the Supernova 2006 conference are too busy being productive to spread much gossip. There were, however, some classic overheard lines.

Hoo boy, four San Francisco conferences in one week! Starting with today's MashPit, this week is a con junkie's dream, as long as you have a guide to getting through.

Good morning and welcome to Conference Week, Waggers! Yes, this week brings such cons as Supernova, Bloggercon, Mashpit, Dorkbot, and BarCamp. You need no excuse for missing most of these, but Supernova has real speakers and all, and missing it requires an excuse. A local journalist shares this guide to copping out.

The toughest part of launching a Web 2.0 company is, of course, picking a name. One Valley vet noted that the Broadcast session at the upcoming Under the Radar conference lists the following presenters:
Kiptronic
Podbridge
PodOmatic
Podserve

Are you coming to this Thursday's Web Infinity Plus One SloshCon? Of course you are! It's free and there's an open bar!

Time for your Valleyspeak lesson.

As announced yesterday, Valleywag holds its first Web Infinity Plus One Conference next Thursday night. The venue is San Francisco's favorite blogger bar, the House of Shields.

Wrap up the Powerbook cord and follow Esther Dyson to the next con — the D Conference winds down today. For actual news from people who are there, check out the Wall Street Journal's blog. (Favorite post: Turning the schmaltz up to 11.) For trumped-up news filtered through the snark machine, look no further. Photos by ZDNet reporter Dan Farber.

No joke, we're holding a Web Infinity Plus One Conference at the House of Shields a week from today! The top room's reserved and the sponsors are ponying up for the bar tab. The deets:

A reader just can't take it any more, seeing the same faces in the D Conference photo series as they saw in all the other conference shots.

Journos Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher had a grand time hosting the Wall Street Journal's D Conference, or at least they've learned to fake it. Reporter Dan Farber has a write-up at ZDNet, and he kindly lent his event photos. Here they are, misinterpreted.

What's happened since Tim O'Reilly's lawyers attacked Tom Raftery like a rabid shark attacking a kitten? (In other words, sent him a cease-and-desist against holding any "Web 2.0" conferences because O'Reilly's trademarking that name?) THESE THINGS HAPPENED:

Tech publisher Tim O'Reilly's lawyers C&D'd an Irish non-profit two weeks before its "Web 2.0 half-day conference" for violating a pending trademark. Sure, Tim O'Reilly (pictured and also happy to see you) may have every right to register the mark "Web 2.0" for the use of conferences — he did popularize the phrase, and he has been running Web 2.0 Conferences for two years. But dudes, if there's anything to learn from Sensei Cory Doctorow, it's that reality doesn't apply to the blogosphere. Thus: