If you ever decide to come to Blog World Expo, I highly recommend paying the extra money to come out for the pre-conference executive and entrepreneur sessions. Let's face it. The main reason I'm here is to network. Networking when there are 200 people is so much easier than when there are 2000.
It's interesting to see what other people think about the future of social media. There are some really sharp people but there are also some total kool-aid drinkers. It's fun to discuss which changes are really permanent structural changes and which are just fads.
I sent time yesterday talking with the main programmer for the B2Evolution blog platform. I met the Australian social media expert Des Walsh. I met Rich Brooks, who I informed that I used to own a derogatory form of his name because I didn't like the University of Kentucky's (my alma mater) football coach (his name is Rich Brooks too).
I found a cool startup our of Cincinnati, called PhoTrade, a startup that just launched. The founders were extremely passionate people and some are still working their day jobs. I met the GM of Blogines and had a long talk about personalization and the future of RSS. For the record, I want Bloglines to learn enough about me that it can prioritize each post by how much I will like it, so that whether I have 5 minutes or 50 minutes to read feeds, I can get the best stuff first.
I met the guys from Heavy and the extremely funny Kevin from Pointless Banter.
The coolest thing of all though, was meeting NZ Bear, who was a real pioneer in the blogosphere and built the ecosystem, the first measuring tool I remember.
Today's sessions aren't that interesting, so I may do more networking, and blog about some of the more interesting debates I've heard in the last 24 hours.
Check it out: A funny comic explaining the 2007-2008 Mortgage crisis.
It was great meeting you! And you are so right about the booth girls, I am still trying to figure out what they were thinking.
It was great meeting you at BWE - good to know that there are others in this part of the US who are actually into blogging and new media.
Overall, I thought that the conference was great. Met so many new and interesting people.
Now back to catching up on emails
Good to meet you Rob. You are right about Krista and Andy and their passionate but totally friendly evangelism for Photrade. I have heeded your gentle dig about my lack of posting on Blogworld Expo - or much else lately - and am in the process of remedying that.