Web Directions East 2008

November 19th, 2008 by Gen Kanai

Gen Kanai introducing Mike Migurski
via Flickr: karitsu’s Photostream

One of the key users that Mozilla focuses on in Japan are web developers as they are critical to having websites that work across all browsers, not just the one from Seattle.

Earlier this year, Mozilla Japan sponsored an event, “SwapSkills for the Happy Web Weekend“(Japanese), when John Allsop came to speak in Tokyo. We heard he was bringing his Web Directions conference series to Tokyo as Web Directions East (2008) and made the decision to co-sponsor the event.

In Japan, we still have a significant number of websites that are only compatible with the browser from Seattle. There are web-based services that stream entertainment content on the Internet that only work with IE, the most famous being gyao.jp, which does not deserve a link from me. There are banks that don’t work with browsers other than the one from Seattle.  etc. Thus it is critically important that web developers in Japan understand leading web design, which includes the importance of standards-based design. Thus it was a pleasure for us to sponsor Web Directions East and it was a personal pleasure to introduce Mike Migurski as the final keynote speaker for Day 1, as Jeff Veen was unable to attend.

Thank you to all of the speakers, John himself, as well as Kikuchi-san and his staff and volunteers for what was hopefully the first of an annual series of events on leading web design in Japan.

Flickr photos tagged wde08

Blog posts in English (these are speakers from the event)

Dan Cederholm – Tokyo Express

Adactio: Journal—Big in Japan

web directions east (tecznotes)

Blog posts in Japanese

Web Directions East : 2 日目 | ヨモツネット

WDE: Web Directions East | Fumihiro Kato / 加藤 文彦

Web Directions Eastで講演をしてきました。 | FXB | 株式会社エフエックスビイ

覚え書き@kazuhi.to: Web Directions East

創造マラソンのデザイン更新中◆Web Direcitons East 2008でいい刺激。 | 創造マラソン

monkeyish studio: Web Directions East | Progressive Enhancement

安藤日記 [&] Web Directions East 08 (Eric Meyer)

安藤日記 [&] Web Directions East 08 (Dan Cederholm)

Japanese media coverage included:

「Web Directions East 2008」カンファレンス レポート

One Response to “Web Directions East 2008”

  1. John Allsopp Says:

    Thanks for the write-up Gen, and your’s and Mozilla’s support for the first ever WDE! It was a great success from our perspective, despite the current climate, and we’ll definitely be doing WDE again in 2009.

    john

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