Sara Winge, a vice president at O'Reilly Media, posted a message asking her boss to confirm his plans to speak at a Stanford event in June for a fee of $25,000. (It's since been deleted, but it's still archived in Twitter's search engine.) Since she'd posted about getting a drink earlier in the day, we're thinking that she might have forgotten to use Twitter's direct-messaging feature.

The subject, the "future of manufacturing," hardly seems like an area to which O'Reilly, who helped popularize the term "Web 2.0," might lend his expertise, but hey, times are tough and money is money. On an O'Reilly website, Winge is described as the "maestro of the O'Reilly media message." And yes, the message is clear: O'Reilly is a mid-tier blowhard for hire.

(Photo by kubina)

The switch caused some confusion, and Berkun admits it was "a huge pain in the ass. But it did occur after Berkun and publisher O'Reilly were slapped with a $1,000,000 lawsuit claim for allegedly making the mistake of failing to do their trademark homework. Looks like having your publisher whine about people's shocking ignorance of the existence of trademarks can bring on bad karma.

In a blog post last week, Tim O'Reilly announced that VC arm O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, will be hosting an event in July called OATV Startup Camp, which bears more than a passing similarity to Sun's Startup Camp. Not only that, Sun has a trademark pending on the term 'Startup Camp'. So will O'Reilly be civil and pick a new name?

(Photos by arwenoreilly)

• Last weekend's Re-Make event in Berekley was, on the outside, a complete success. But as it turns out, the 24-hour event was evidently vacant when the sun rose on 4-29 (NEVER FORGET!) According to the ConFonz's reliable servants, the bloated fat man in charge of the event threw a temper tantrum around 9 AM and threw everyone out. That means the event was, technically, only 21 hours long.
• Blind Item Cafe Press does a great job of filling closets with home-grown T-shirts and tchochkees with pictures of your kids printed on them. But it would seem that one of the company's sales and marketing executives is also in the closet. Sure, outing the gays isn't a lofty journalistic accomplishment, but rumor has it that this female blogger is denying the fact up and down the block, despite her extremely manish exterior. Come on, madam, this is the Bay Area. No one will think less of you for being a lesbian. In fact, most locals will think more of you!
• Novell is still doomed.
• Make Magazine may be a successful publication, and everyone may still be going to Maker Faire this year, but the O'Reilly's darling child still doesn't have any kind of budget. The magazine, evidently, practices what it preaches, and builds promotional materials out of things salvaged from dumpsters.

Overheard at Web 2.0 today - she just sold the venerable Release 1.0 to Tim O'Reilly and it is going to be renamed Release 2.0 to help promote the Web 2.0 meme.

1. "Release 2.0." Ugh.
2. Release 1.0 is Dyson's monthly report and conference.
3. Release 2.0 is her book.
4. Both have her face on them, and that personal branding skeeves me out.

Earlier: Dyson's PC Forum is over forever [Valleywag]

• The speakers: Heavyweights like Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and venture capitalist Ram Shiram. They're here to prove their relevance to those enamored with Web 2.0. They also attracted the lesser-known speakers — going onstage with Bezos is like opening a concert for Death Cab.
• The attendees: Three types: starfuckers, schmoozers, and cynics. The starfuckers will take notes on Schmidt's talk. The schmoozers will call the home office on Wednesday for a refill of business cards. The cynics will open an IRC chatroom (a "backchannel") to mock the presenters.
• The venue: San Francisco's Palace Hotel. Posh, and conveniently located across the street from the House of Shields, a classic bar owned by local videoblogger Schlomo Rabinowitz and popular with the cynics.
• The local Starbucks: Line out the door all week. Suck it up and drink the hotel's coffee.
• The talks: Expect the bold names to spout vapid but quotable lines about community and the future. Expect the filler presenters to explain their products — a careful ritual, as the presenter must not admit that no one knows what his or her product — Ning, for example — does.
• The name: O'Reilly is officially renaming this from "conference" to "summit," to distinguish it from O'Reilly's "expo" coming up next spring. +5 pretension bonus.