What an amazing conference!

From the passion that the presenters and the delegates exhibited about changing the world to the smart presentations filled with great tips and tricks, Webzine 2005 exceeded all of my expectations.

Quick reviews:

Journalism Online - other than one panelist taking over the microphone (I would have liked to hear more from the women on the panel), it was insightful. I think it's safe to say that media as we know it today is going to change drastically and much of it is to do with citizen journalists.

Great insight: the way that bloggers are able to monetize their blogging is by forming networks. Hello! Collaboration. Great idea.

Jacob Appelbaum - you already heard from me on this and I will continue to refer to him. And, yes, Jacob, I'm getting up off of my ass and doing something to effect change. I'm going to stop just talking about it.

Community Matters - it's great to see these niche zines and blogs getting the readership. Of course, this comes with drawbacks and each participant had great ideas on how to manage communities. I had a good laugh when they showed the videoblog post Real Life vs. The Internet. Hilarious.

Intro to Digital Photography & Photoblogging - Both Jose and Lucas had amazing stuff, but they still inspired me to start one of my own (coming soon, I'm going to split my blog apart - one for business, one for personal and one for photography). They didn't really talk about how I could improve my photography, but I'm planning on taking a course this fall.

DIY Marketing - Molly Golightly was a delight to watch and had oodles of great tips for people trying to promote their website. Some highlights:

- Be Positive: don't say what you aren't, say what you are.
- Everyone should have a 'personal statement' - one line that sums up what they do
- Never send out something before your site is ready and if you are starting a community site, don't try to get publicity until there are people in your community

The Party - Some of it is a little fuzzy, but what a night! I meet oodles of amazing people from Technorati, Flickr, Apple, Laughing Squid, and many start ups and independents. I had great conversations and even better connections. I left at 4 am. I just couldn't get enough. Thanks, Scott, for donating your very cool pad to the party!

Sunday - due to the 4 am exit, I was a little late and missed the first session. Oops. I hope Niall will forgive me.

Video Blogging Panel - I had no idea how fast this segment is growing, but when they played some of the content I can find online, I wasn't surprised. There is nothing more connecting online than video. You get a real sense of a person when you can see them as well as hear them. I'm inspired to get a camera.

Using the Internet to Kick the Man's Ass - activists online are making all sorts of waves offline through their online work. The change they can affect is amazing to me. And, by collaborating, they are growing the communities. I think the biggest lesson here is that using both online and offline tactics will go far.

Microformats - I'm not a programmer, but Ryan's microformatting made perfect sense to me on how I can use it to leverage my blog traffic and to make Ojos' search that much more effective.

Jonas Luster - I only caught the tail end of his rants, but Jonas had an interesting message about 'we are the media'...sometimes we get too caught up in our micro-universe here and forget that there is a whole world of people who don't know (or even care) about what is happening online. This was especially poignant to him during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when he said that it wasn't computers many people needed first, it was food and medical supplies.

Selling Out: Hot or Not, LiveJournal, StickerNation, Cafe Press and Fuckedcompany reps all discussed their rise from just goofing off online to making good money and a viable business. Many of them provide services to help bloggers monetize their work. I'm going to finally make those t-shirts. It's time.

Sushi afterwards - I couldn't resist one last outing with the SFBloggers. The sushi in SF is killer.

The conference was inspirational. Being in a room with all of these passionate and smart people was exactly what the doctor ordered for me this weekend. I'm full of energy and ready to get out and busy affecting change.

Which takes me to my next blog post...

Tag: webzine2005
Photos: Flickr Tag