Message from the General Chairs

On behalf of the International World Wide Web Conference Committee (IW3C2) and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, we are delighted to welcome you to the 18th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2009) in Madrid, the capital of Spain. The WWW conference is the premier international forum for sharing the latest information about the Web, its technologies, and its future evolution.

This year is the 20th Anniversary of the proposal of the Web and the theme the conference “Walking on Webshine” is a metaphor of how the shine of this revolutionary new technology has changed our society by feeding during the last 20 years the growth of new ways of knowledge sharing, collaborations at a global scale, social networking, participatory journalism, business process automation, e-Commerce, e-Government, e-Health, etc.

The conference covers very relevant Web research and development topics, including Data Mining and Search, Social Networks and the Web 2.0, Web Engineering, Semantic and data Web, Security and Privacy, XML and the Data Web, Internet Monetization, User Interfaces and Mobile Web, Performance, Scalability and Availability or Rich Media.

WWW 2009 received a very high number of refereed paper submissions this year (over 800) out of which 105 refereed papers where accepted. Complementing the high quality papers are 11 exciting workshops, 13 informative tutorials, several expert panels, the Industrial track and more than 100 posters with late-breaking results, plus the always-popular Developers Track, W3C Barcamp, and a special WWW in Ibero-America track. You certainly have a very busy week ahead of you.

It is difficult to estimate the time and effort required to organize a conference of this magnitude - and we could not have done it without the passion and dedication from many people on the WWW 2009 team. Particularly demanding is the task of the Program Chairs: we thank Yoelle Marek and Wolfgang Nejdl for their many hours of work on the conference, and to Google for hosting the PC meeting in Paris. The high quality of the technical program owes much to the efforts of the PC chairs, as well as those of the track chairs, deputy chairs, program committee, and external reviewers.

We would like to thank all the institutions participating in the Honorary Committee for the support given to WWW 2009. We would like to express our gratitude and recognition to the Prince Philip of Spain for chairing the Honorary Committee. Special mention must be made of the support received from the Ministry of Science and Innovation and from the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce. Thanks also to all other members of the Honorary Committee for their support.

The Local Organizing Committee Chair Joan Vinyes and all the Organizing Committee members have done a remarkable job in meeting the demands of a large International Conference like WWW 2009. Viajes Pacífico served as the conference PCO, dealing with many logistical issues. Fundcorp handled the WWW 2009 sponsorship and communication program. IW3C2, the Spanish W3C office and former conference chairs gave valuable advice and support at crucial moments. The WWW2009 volunteer team coordinated by John Miller and Miguel A. Valero for their thorough preparations and assistance in making everything run smoothly during the Conference week.

We also wish to thank our plenary speakers for sharing their insights, as well as the other authors and presenters for their contributions. We also thank our sponsors (especially Telefónica and Fundación Once) for their generous financial contributions to the conference. Thank you all for attending WWW 2009. Enjoy the conference, the food, and the beautiful and charming environment of the city of Madrid!

Juan Quemada, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

Gonzalo León, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid