Incredibly, this is the seventh year of the D: All Things Digital conference.

We feel very lucky to get here, especially in the midst of what our own site’s Digital Daily scribe, John Paczkowski, has so perfectly dubbed the “econalypse.”

Ironically, Walt Mossberg and I planned to launch the very first conference in the middle of the last major downturn for tech, in 2001. But, in the carnage of the Web 1.0 meltdown, we actually held off for two years, with our first D gathering taking place in 2003.

It’s been a real winning streak since then for D, due in large part to our great speakers–such as Microsoft (MSFT) icon Bill Gates and Apple (AAPL) legend Steve Jobs.

Both have been onstage many times over the years, including a historic interview the pair of tech titans did together in 2007 at D5.

Other amazing speakers have included: Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE), Barry Diller of InterActiveCorp (IACI), legendary director George Lucas, Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Bezos of Amazon (AMZN), former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, News Corp. (NWS) head Rupert Murdoch, Microsoft head Steve Ballmer, Walt Disney (DIS) honcho Bob Iger, Bobby Kotick of Activision Blizzard (ATVI), CBS (CBS) CEO Les Moonves, Democratic and Republican pols like former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John McCain, all the leadership of Google (GOOG) and many, many more.

We have had a lot of great moments onstage with all these tech and media players over the years, to be sure, with interviews ranging from the funny to the sublime to the truly disastrous.

But, like the digital industry and the innovation our conference focuses on, we also like to lean forward to try to figure out what the Next Big Thing is around the corner, whether it comes from Silicon Valley or not.

That’s why we’re kicking off our conference on May 26 with two of the founders of Twitter–Biz Stone and Evan Williams–who are riding high on tech’s latest hot thing, which might turn out to be either a rocket ship or a shooting star.

They’ll be followed up over the next two days by a plethora of interesting players, from the leaders of several major mobile companies to content execs hit hard by fast-moving digital forces to a new Internet leader like Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz, who is trying to turn around one of the Web’s great icons from its more recent lackluster path.

And, as we always do, we will be featuring a spate of demos too, trying to see if we can unearth that next next thing.

In the past, the D stage has seen the debut of start-up products like Sling Media’s Slingbox, Aliph’s Jawbone and Pure Digital’s Flip, all of which have gone onto glory. And also some, like Palm’s Foleo, which did not.

While not everyone can attend D, our crack staff is committed to bringing all the action from this year’s conference to readers of the All Things Digital site via up-to-the-minute blogs, photos, videos, tweets, digs and more. We’ll also, as soon as we can, post the videos of each of the onstage sessions, in their entirety.

Until it all kicks off, here is the list of speakers, below, in alphabetical order, who will be appearing at 2009’s D7 conference:

Irving Azoff | CEO of Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM)

Mitchell Baker | Chairman of Mozilla

Steve Ballmer | CEO of Microsoft

Carol Bartz | CEO of Yahoo

Mark Cuban | Chairman of HDNet and Owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theaters and Magnolia Pictures

Eve Ensler | Playwright and Founder of V-Day

Arianna Huffington | Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo | CEO of Nokia (NOK)

Mike Lazaridis | Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIMM)

John Lilly | CEO of Mozilla

John Malone | Chairman of Liberty Media Corporation (LCAPA)

Roger McNamee | Partner, Elevation Partners

Jon Miller | Chief Digital Officer of News Corp.

Jon Rubinstein | Executive Chairman, Palm (PALM)

Randall Stephenson | CEO of AT&T (T)

Biz Stone | Co-founder of Twitter

Owen Van Natta | CEO of MySpace

Katharine Weymouth | Publisher of the Washington Post (WPO)

Evan Williams | Co-founder and CEO of Twitter

Jeff Zucker | CEO of NBC Universal (GE)

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s the fourth and final part of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer. (I posted one video part of the discussion with Stringer every day this week except Monday, starting Tuesday and concluding today.)

Sony (SNE) has been under enormous pressure to innovate and compete better in all its many businesses, and the consumer electronics giant still has not proved that it can knit them all together into a cogent whole.

In this video, Stringer takes questions from the audience about audio quality, cable versus telephone, software and iTunes.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 3 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer. (I am posting one video part of the discussion with Stringer every day this week, starting Tuesday and concluding tomorrow.)

Sony (SNE) has been under enormous pressure to innovate and compete better in all its many businesses, and the consumer electronics giant still has not proved that it can knit them all together into a cogent whole.

In this video, Stringer talks more about craplets, discusses digital music players, including the iPod and Walkman-enabled Sony Ericsson cellphones, and takes questions from the audience about YouTube and the challenge of maintaining innovation and entrepreneurialism at a huge multinational company.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 2 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer. (I am posting one video part of the discussion with Stringer every day this week, starting yesterday and concluding Friday.)

Sony (SNE) has been under enormous pressure to innovate and compete better in all its many businesses, and the consumer electronics giant still has not proved that it can knit them all together into a cogent whole.

In this video, Stringer talks about the next direction for the PlayStation gaming business, Blu-ray discs, the impact of digital distribution, digital changes in the movie industry, personal computers and the “joy of craplets.”

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s Part 1 of 4 of an interview Walt Mossberg did with Sony Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer. (I am posting one video part of the discussion with Stringer every day this week, starting today and concluding Friday.)

The consumer electronics giant has been under enormous pressure to innovate and compete better in all its many businesses and still has not proved Sony (SNE) can knit them all together into a cogent whole.

In this video, Stringer talks about how Sony has been recovering from recent troubled times, the challenges of the television business, what’s next for screen technology (think thin) and the prospects for Sony’s huge PlayStation gaming franchise.

The annual gathering of tech and media luminaries was created and is run by my partner Walt Mossberg and me.

D6 tech and media speakers include: Microsoft Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT); News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch; Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (TWX); Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; Michael Dell of Dell Computer (DELL); IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller; Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos; Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE); and TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers.

Also: Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI); Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ); Activision’s (ATVI) Robert Kotick; and former Microsoft tech guru Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures.

Just recently, we added Jerry Yang, CEO and co-founder of Yahoo (YHOO), and now he is being joined onstage at the conference by Yahoo President Sue Decker (pictured here in a lovely Wall Street Journal dot-drawing).

The pairing should make for a lively session, given all the heat around Yahoo of late, largely related to the scuttled attempt by Microsoft to buy the company.

What would you like to know about that and anything else about Yahoo?

As it so happens, you can ask!

While the conference is sold out, you can submit questions that you would like answered to Yang and Decker or any of the speakers via text or video. Walt and I will pick the best ones and let loose.

Ask early and often here!

In addition, the whole conference will be online at AllThingsD during the conference, via live blogs and reports of breaking news (and there will be breaking news, as there always is), along with video highlights.

And videos of all the interviews will be posted soon after it is over.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft (MSFT). News Corp.’s (NWS) Rupert Murdoch. Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (TWX). Yahoo’s (YHOO) Jerry Yang.

All of them engaged in roiling Internet deal-making of late and all of them in just three weeks on the same stage–but not, thankfully, at the same time, or we’d need a professional negotiator–at the 6th D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.

The annual gathering of tech and media luminaries was created and is run by my amazing partner Walt Mossberg and me (see us here at D5) and will take place May 27 to 29.

The conference, as we describe it on our Web site, is “unlike any other executive conference.” What we mean by that is that we try to determine the next direction of the digital revolution via unscripted and informal, but pointed, conversations about the impact of digital technology with industry leaders.

In other words, Walt and I needling at the major players of the digital sector, until they give up the good stuff.

The other digital and media leaders coming? That would be: Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook; Michael Dell of Dell Computer (DELL); IAC’s (IACI) Barry Diller; Amazon’s (AMZN) Jeff Bezos; Howard Stringer of Sony (SNE); and TiVo’s (TIVO) Tom Rogers.

Also: Tom Glocer of Thomson Reuters (TRI); Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin; Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless (VZ); Activision’s (ATVI) Robert Kotick; and former Microsoft tech guru and Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures.

To say our timing is impeccably planned would be undeserved–we had no idea so much news related to all these companies and their leaders would break out, from the tough economy to takeover battles to court face-offs to mergers to trying to create a whole new way of reading.

Also, there will be some–as yet under wraps–amazing demos onstage too.

While the analog conference has been sold out for many months, the action will be on the AllThingsD.com site throughout the conference with round-the-clock live blogging by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, as well as video highlights from stage.

In addition, we’ll be pointing all over the Web to important tech and media news that breaks at D6.

And we will also stream the entire conference in the weeks after the conference takes place, so ATD’s audience can experience the whole thing, even if they cannot all attend.

But anyone’s questions can be there, though–this year, you can submit questions to any of the speakers via text or video that you would like answered. Walt and I will pick the best ones and let loose. Ask early and often here!

Walt and I are very excited for D6, even after last year, when we brought together industry legends Bill Gates and Apple’s Steve Jobs, for an historic joint interview.

At the time, Walt and I joked that we would not be able to top that amazing event (the video of the entire interview is below).

That interview was nearly unbeatable, but we also think that with the top-level interviewees we have assembled for D6, that it is game on.

Until then, here’s the Gates/Jobs video from D5:

While Stewart is known for her focus on home-making skills, some might not know that she is also a bit of a geek, who has been a fixture at many tech events over the years.

For example, she has been an active audience member at our D: All Things Digital conference over the last two years (here she is at D4, grilling Sony CEO Howard Stringer about why there had to be so many wires with her devices).

In this interview with WSJ Online, she talks about her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, including its many forays into the Internet area.

That will soon mean a new site she has dubbed “Marthapedia,” or–as BoomTown likes to call it–”All Things Martha.”

So far the reviews have been less than whelming–too clunky, too pricey, too wonky, to name a few of the complaints–but it’s interesting that tech types keep at their seemingly futile effort to replace the very useful device known as the book.

At D4, for example, Sony head Howard Stringer (pictured below) declared its $350 eReader was going to be a big hit. It was not. (Well, to be fair, he did not give an exact timetable on the success of the gadget, but we’re still waiting.)

So far, the meek little book still seems to be the winner over all e-book challengers.

Why is that, given the relentless digitization of every bit of content on the planet and the inevitable march in that direction?

I’d say it’s pretty simple. Books work fine–they are portable, cheap, easy to read, their batteries never die and they’re kind of pretty.

The pluses of an electronic version of a book are not so much of a plus. It’s portable, but not more so than a book. It’s expensive. It’s complex to figure out and sometimes not so easy to read. Its batteries always die. Also, let’s be honest: Not so pretty.

And, though you can hold more books on them–the big selling point–who usually is reading more than one or two books at a time? The same is true for searchability–unless it is a textbook, I can’t think of a time when I really wanted to search a book.

Still, the efforts to storm the castle of reading continues, as you will see here:

And we like her 25% more now, after seeing the new pictures she took for Wired’s latest issue, as well as a particularly sassy interview she did with the magazine.

The homemaking empress is on the cover of Wired, pictured here making a Wii-shaped cake. It looks delicious, but apparently is not from these recipe instructions that leave out the baking soda for architectural reasons.

And another picture here by Jill Greenberg has her pruning a robot hedge, along with this interview with Mark Frauenfelder on her gadget-freak status.

That’s been easy to see for many years. I ran into her first more than a decade ago at a Microsoft party at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and she has shown up at a variety of Silicon Valley events from time to time.

In addition, Stewart has attended the D conference for the past two years, first accompanying Martha Stewart Omnimedia CEO Susan Lyne, who appeared onstage at D4. But I was surprised to observe that she has actually been one of the few attendees who has sat through all of the sessions from start to finish.

She even managed to fire off a very funny but pointed series of questions at D4 to Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer about the nest of wires current gadgets require to operate. Here she is pictured grilling Stringer and also showing one of D’s teen panelists how to properly fold a T-shirt.

In the current interview with Wired, Stewart makes some other salient points, especially about quality. “Whether you’re a programmer or a seamstress, it’s all about new techniques, simplifying old techniques and consolidating steps,” she said. “Making things go faster–but not worse. Better.”

She also jokingly blames the end of her marriage on the Walkman, which she calls the “Rudeman,” and decries using email over talking, although she seems pretty addicted to her BlackBerry from what I have seen (to be fair, so am I).

And Stewart is also apparently working on “Marthapedia,” which is her take on the user-contributed Wikipedia project. Of course, it being Martha, she will be editing user content.

“It won’t be as freewheeling as Wikipedia,” she said. “Because a lot of this–you have to really monitor it.”

And that is a good thing.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year, Sony Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Nobuyuki Idei pondered the future of the world’s largest consumer-electronics company caught in the maelstrom of the heady Internet age.

What technology or online company, he wondered, would be the ideal partner that would allow Sony to take full advantage of its many assets in the digital arena? And how should Sony use its famed brand name, rich content, high-quality hardware and strong consumer relationships to become a key Internet player?

He tossed out some partner possibilities: Yahoo, AOL Time Warner and Microsoft. He didn’t let on what he considered best for Sony.

Last week, at the giant Comdex show in Las Vegas, Sony’s thinking became clearer. Sony announced a series of deals, including an ambitious, if vague, plan to work with AOL on developing easy-to-use high-speed home networks, innovative online content and devices, and even a new Internet browser. It also announced new initiatives related to cellphones and unveiled several new Net-enabled electronic products.

More important, in his keynote speech at the show, Sony’s president and chief operating officer Kunitake Ando made the company’s firmest declaration yet that it intends to become a “ubiquitous value network,” providing a range of consumer-friendly interactive services to any device anywhere.

It’s about time.

Despite its enviable digital assets, Sony has been the Hamlet of the interactive stage — unable to decide “to be” — largely due to an internal culture that kept its many independent fiefdoms from working together as a powerful whole.

The company has promised to fix the problem before. Last year, after the merger of AOL and Time Warner was announced, Sony said it was reorganizing management to better take advantage of the rapid convergence that was going on. “If they ever accomplish this, Sony could really make a big difference in the power dynamics of the industry,” said one Silicon Valley player last week. “The problem is, we have all gotten tired of waiting for it to happen.”

Sony execs claim things are different now that Internet mania has calmed and the world is on the cusp of a broadband future perfectly suited for their company. “We have taken a lot of heat…but we seem to be getting beyond the issues of how to cooperate among ourselves,” said Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony’s U.S. holding company, in an interview last week. “There is no one at the company–in Toyko or here–who does not understand now how this all has to be interrelated.”

It certainly is a tough time for Sony to step up its profile. The weak economy world-wide is limiting. Sony itself has felt the impact, especially in its flagship consumer-electronics area, reporting a $107 million loss for its recent quarter and forecasting that profits for the full year will be cut in half from the year before.

Still, it may not be such a bad time to begin striking out. Since the Internet bust leaves huge opportunities for stable players, companies like Sony may be in the best position to benefit when the next chapter of the interactive revolution begins.

To its credit, the company never jumped heedlessly into the frothy period, as other large media conglomerates, like Walt Disney Co., did. Now Sony’s conservatism has turned out to look pretty smart.

“While we are not entirely blameless, we definitely didn’t go charging in,” said Mr. Stringer, who credits managers in Japan for Sony’s restraint. “They were rightly suspicious of the business plans and found the bubble to be a bubble.”

While it considered a range of moves, such as investing heavily in both the Excite and Yahoo portals in their heyday, it didn’t do most of them in the end. “I definitely was nervous since everyone was getting rich but us,” recalled Mr. Stringer. “But we held back and as a result did not get as burned.”

Now that the interactive space has been “whittled down to make sense,” Mr. Stringer thinks Sony has the right stuff to prevail. He may be right, given that Sony holds many impressive and wide-ranging interactive assets.

In hardware, it offers well-made digital cameras, music players, hand-helds, computers and the leading game-player unit, the PlayStation 2, that has many other interactive possibilities. It is developing potentially promising interactive subscription services in music, games and movies, and holds licenses for interactive television applications. And its media unit holds important parcels of entertainment content.

What it doesn’t have is distribution, an impetus behind its push into broadband with AOL, and the reason for an earlier marketing deal with Yahoo to hawk its products, content and services online.

Indeed, the AOL broadband alliance, if done correctly, holds a lot of potential, especially since it will help ward off challenges from Microsoft, which is battling both companies in a number of consumer and home entertainment markets. The software company is spending prodigiously to launch a game-player competitor to PS2, called Xbox. Both products have aspirations well beyond games, hoping to use such devices to deliver a range of online offerings over high-speed lines in the future.

That’s why Sony is developing technologies such as Feel, which aims to join all kinds of devices in a high-speed wireless home network. With open standards and the link with the popular AOL, Mr. Stringer thinks Sony is “traveling at the right pace with the right partners.” He doesn’t believe the company needs to make many major acquisitions to realize its goals.

Of course, Sony’s success here depends on the rapid roll-out of broadband and getting consumers to pay for more interactive subscription services — a dream still not realized. It would also help if the economy turned around, too.

When it does, Mr. Stringer thinks Sony will be ready. “After all this talk about the promises of synergy,” he said, “we hope to begin to see the advantages.”

Or, in more literary terms: To be or not to be, that is the question.