Conference Hound-Up April 9, 2012: Consuming the Competition

I eat Instagram for breakfast!

Conference time, everybody!  A few fun events start off the week and some bold news from the web keeps things spinning.  You might have heard about Facebook’s big purchase, but did you hear about the waterproof iPhone or the Chocolate Printer?

Now that I have your attention…

The 1st Annual PR Disrupted Conference focuses on Food, Wine and Travel.  This event gathers top influencers from those areas in San Francisco to offer insights into how to better blog, reach your customers, improve your product, and compete in the online marketplace.  The goal is to keep attendees ahead of the curve by providing a fully comprehensive experience that covers every angle of the industry.

Organizer O’Reilly is holding the Mini Tools of Change event in Chicago today.  It’s meant to mirror the annual (and enormous) New York Tools of Change event but stay tighter in focus.  The aim is to help the tech, publishing and “bookish-arts” communities by sparking discussion among industry professionals.

The Edison Electric Institute Annual Convention & Expo lights up Texas this week, gathering a huge crowd of electrical industry folks to learn and network.

Facebook flexed its muscles today, cutting a check for a mere $1 Billion dollars in order to purchase Instagram.  It’s not the only company Facebook has bought in recent days, but it has to be among the biggest.  As a strategic mastermind and powerful juggernaut, Facebook may never meet its equal.

Meanwhile, Microsoft blew through a billion bucks as well, buying up patents from AOL.  I know what you’re thinking:  AOL still exists?

Finally some good news that’s relevant to you.  That’s right: you.  I’m assuming you’re an iPhone user because something like 9 out of 10 people I pass by are on one playing some hip new Zynga game I can’t download on my Android.  Anyway, there’s a new waterproof case that allows you to take your iPhone underwater and snap photos.  Just one more option for the phone that can pretty much do anything!

Wow.  Broadway Shows make a LOT of money.  According to Yahoo! News, The Lion King is now the highest-grossing show of all time, edging past Phantom of the Opera. Their total grosses are obscene, topping $800 million.

And in our most important news of the day, someone has finally been smart enough to create a device that creates 3-dimensional chocolate structures straight from the computer.  Yep, it’s a 3D ChocoPrinter.