The "Beyond REST" moniker is a little propaganda-ish. REST has its place and is a great architectural paradigm. Apart from that, the slideshow was pretty useful and informative. For me, it couldn't have come at a better time -- it pointed out a couple things about XMPP integration that no one had really clearly explained before. (For me, it helped clarify the distinction between XMPP itself and IM, and how one would build an app to leverage XMPP servers.)