news Local conference outfit Web Directions, best known for its popular October conference of the same name, will host two smaller conferences for web professionals in May, this year: Web Directions Code, set for May 23rd and 24th in Melbourne, and State of Play on May 28th in Sydney.

Web Directions Code was conceived bearing in mind the fact that the web was becoming increasingly application-like and the capabilities of HTML5 and other web technologies were becoming more and more sophisticated. It was to be an HTML5 and JavaScript developer conference focusing entirely on code.

Day one of the conference will be dedicated to HTML5 as an application platform, with sessions on browser device APIs, HTML5 audio and video, touch events for mobile and tablet devices, offline web apps, HTML5 messaging, the History API, HTML5 technologies for game and interactive application development and more. Speakers include FarukAteş, Divya Manian, John Allsopp, Dave Johnson, Damon Oehlman, Silvia Pfeiffer, Anson Parker and Andrew Fisher.

Day two will be dedicated to Javascript, with sessions on Node.js, debugging, performance, client-side templating languages like Mustache, Dust.js, Handlebars.js, Underscore.js, event libraries and more. The speakers are: Rob Hawkes, Jed Schmidt, AnetteBergo, Ryan Seddon, Jared Wyles, Mark Dalgleish, Tony Milne, Tim Oxley and Damon Oehlman. The venue will be The RACV City Club in Melbourne. Tickets are priced at $899 if booked before May 1st, and for the Late Bird, it is $999 from May 2nd to May 23rd.

State of Play, a symposium on the future of browser-based gaming was to be a part of the Vivid Sydney 2012 program. It would be Australia’s first conference focussed on the business and technology of HTML5-based games, and would be about the exploding opportunities in HTML5-based games – in the browser, and as native apps on iOS, Android and other platforms. Web Directions intended bringing together local and international experts. The venue will be the Museum of Contemporary Art (the MCA) in Sydney. Tickets are priced at $449 until May 1st, and at $499 from May 2nd to May 28th. Topics include:

• Games for brand building and customer engagement
• Revenue and business models
• Funding and more for indie game developers
• App stores and distributing your game
• HTML5 technologies, a 5,000ft view of key technologies including webGL, HTML5 audio, SVG, geolocation, mobile device features like gyroscopes and accelerometers and more

Web Directions was founded in 2004 by web industry professionals Maxine Sherrin and John Allsopp (pictured, above). The pair’s Web Directions South conference (held late in the year) has become one of Australia’s biggest annual technology events, fusing creative and technical streams together to wind up with a conference which is known for its innovative speakers, thinkers and discussions. Other events associated with web development are also commonly held in the same week in Australia.

Image credit: Paul Hempsall, Creative Commons

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