Vanity Fair Columnist and Best Selling Author Michael Wolff to Keynote SIIA's Fourth Annual Information Industry Summit

Vanity Fair Columnist and Best Selling Author Michael Wolff to Keynote SIIA's Fourth Annual Information Industry Summit

Keynote Event Sponsored by HighBeam Research, Inc.

WASHINGTON and CHICAGO, Jan. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry, announced today that best-selling author and award-winning Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff will be the opening keynote speaker at SIIA's fourth annual Information Industry Summit. The Summit will be held February 1-2 at Gotham Hall in New York City. Wolff's appearance is sponsored by HighBeam(TM) Research, Inc., operator of an online research engine for individuals (http://www.highbeam.com/) that fills the gap between free search engines and high-end information services.

Wolff is author of Autumn of the Moguls: My Misadventures With the Titans, Poseurs, and Money Guys Who Mastered and Messed Up Big Media and the best- selling Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet. He is also a magazine columnist who has been nominated for the National Magazine Award in each of the past three years and has won the award twice. His column has appeared in Vanity Fair since early 2004. For six years, his column, "This Media Life," anchored New York Magazine. Wolff has also written extensively about politics and gained international recognition for his dispatches from the Persian Gulf during the Iraq War. He appears regularly as a guest commentator on numerous national television shows. He has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, The New York Times and was the subject of a recent cover story in The New Republic.

Jeff Cutler, General Manager, Content Division, SIIA, said, "We are excited to have Michael Wolff address our conference. His insights into the larger societal trends that inform and define the future of information should provide a stimulating opening salvo for our Summit."

Patrick Spain, founder, chairman and CEO of HighBeam Research, added, "The SIIA Information Industry Summit is an essential event for executives from the electronic publishing and content industries. Few people are capable of providing the provocative and witty commentary that Michael Wolff can. We are pleased to help sponsor Michael's not-to-be missed appearance at the SIIA Summit."

The theme of this year's Summit is "Connecting for Growth." The digital content industry is emerging from a difficult economic period and many corporations are now achieving strong growth. This exclusive conference will enable senior executives and operational managers to discuss their strategies for success.

In addition to Wolff, the Summit will include the following speakers, among others:

* Deborah Platt Majoras, chair of the Federal Trade Commission (luncheon
keynote, Tuesday, Feb. 1)
* Halsey Minor, CEO, chairman of the board and founder, GrandCentral
Communications (luncheon keynote, Wednesday, Feb. 2)
* Thomas J. Clarke, Jr., chairman and CEO, TheStreet.com
* Larry Kramer, chairman and CEO, CBS Market Watch
* Gordon Crovitz, president, electronic publishing, Dow Jones and Company
* James Fallows, national correspondent, The Atlantic
* Kathleen Greenler Sexton, vice president and chief marketing officer,
HighBeam Research
* Don Hawk, co-founder and president, TechTarget
* Ron Klausner, president, ProQuest Information and Learning
* Ted Leonsis, vice chairman, America Online, Inc. and president, AOL Core
Service
* Dan'l Lewin, corporate vice president, Microsoft .NET Business
Development
* Michael Marchesano, president and CEO, VNU Business Media
* Nancy McKinstry, chairman of the executive board, Wolters Kluwer
* Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive, WPP Group
* Steve Wildstrom, Technology and You columnist, BusinessWeek
* Azhar Rafee, senior vice president, global head, Reuters.com

2005 Information Industry Summit Sponsors:
Keynote: HighBeam Research
Gold: Factiva, HighBeam Research and The Jordan, Edmiston Group
Silver: Directory Downloads and Valeo IP
Bronze: Aladdin Knowledge Systems, Comtex News Network, Copyright
Clearance Center, Fast Search & Transfer, LexisNexis, Mark Logic, and
Really Strategies
Supporting: Genesys Partners



Registration for the fourth annual Information Industry Summit is still available on the web at http://www.siia.net/iis/2005/ or via telephone at (202)789-4485.

About SIIA

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education, and intellectual property protection to more than 700 leading software and information companies. For further information visit http://www.siia.net/

About HighBeam(TM) Research, Inc.

HighBeam(TM) Research, Inc. operates an online research engine for individuals, filling the gap between free search engines and high-end information services. By delivering sophisticated research tools with convenient access to the free Web, paid online services and its proprietary HighBeam Library archive, HighBeam Research empowers individual researchers to efficiently find, organize and share answers. HighBeam Research is located at http://www.highbeam.com/.


Source: Software & Information Industry Association

CONTACT: SIIA Event Information: Jeff Cutler, +1-973-378-8912,
jcutler@siia.net, or SIIA Public Relations: David Williams, +1-202-789-4473,
dwilliams@siia.net, both of the Software & Information Industry Association;
or Jani Spede of HighBeam Research Public Relations, +1-866-669-2889,
jspede@highbeam.com

Web site: http://www.siia.net/
http://www.highbeam.com/

Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/803080.html


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