I'm settled in at WordCamp and feeling like there's a big red "L" for loser on my forehead, because I'm using my clunky old Windows laptop instead of a nice sleek Mac, plus of course I'm typing this into MovableType.
Other than that, I'm stoked for the day. I'll upload some photos later.
UPDATE 10:40 AM: Well, someone else already has photos online. I'm in this one.
UPDATE 11:15AM: Next up, Om Malik and John Dvorak. Funny opening:
Om: I'm a Mac, you're a PC.
John: Yeah, whatever.
Although to be fair, Dvorak is much less of a ranty old guy in person than he is in his columns.
UPDATE 11:45AM:
This is an interesting discussion. Here's a few more tidbits:
Om: Comments are what makes blogging. It is the biggest crucial difference from mainstream media. You have to engage (except for the morons). Moderating is the key to success.
(Me: In other words - FU Dave Winer!)
Om: You are responsible for the tone at your site. If you keep the discourse polite the readers will response. You have to go on the assumption that people are inherently nice.
John (to NY Times guy): if you can't filter out profanity but filter in 'Dick Cheney' then your filters suck.
John: Rating comments is useless. unless you're looking at restaurant reviews.
John: A writing tip - it's really an old newspaper trick - read your piece out loud before you send it out. Really out loud, not just pretend. You'll be amazed at the number of errors you'll catch.
Plus, a really funny discussion of why it's OK to call someone a douchebag but not a crook
Update 2:45PM:
I didn't post any notes from Lorelle VanFossen's session, and now Jeremy Wright of b5media is up. Jeremy invited some audience members to join him, so now Eric from ICHC is up as well. Neat!
Got to be honest, so far this afternoon I am not hearing anything earth shattering, certainly not to someone who's been blogging for a while. I'm also in need of more caffeine, which may account for my flagging interest level.
The side conversations have been fun though. I had a nice chat with Stormy of bargaintravel.com.
Update 5:15PM
Robert Hoekman's presentation was quite good and I took a bunch of notes, but I'm hitting info overload in a big way, and Matt Cutts is talking. I'll see if I can get some of the notes on later.
Comments (1)
If someone has done anything 'earth shattering' on their blog, you'd have probably already read it. :) It's great that you're enjoying side conversations - for one who's a blog veteran that's very much the primary thing to get out of the conference.
Regarding Om and John comments:
1."Rating comments is useless. unless you're looking at restaurant reviews" - or you're reading at Warcraft quest comments. Great way to filter out junk vs useful comments. It's the only time I've seen comment rating useful.
2. "Comments are what makes blogging." Amen to that. And Shalom.
And finally:
*Start Family Guy style scene*
Rachel: ...feeling like there's a big red "L" for loser on my forehead.
Stewie: Gee, this was worse than when Scott took his Blackberry to iPhoneDevCamp.
*flashback transition*
Scott: "Look at me, I'm copying and pasting my code. How do you like that? Oh, look, it's Java Runtime Environment. It's a real app."
*End Family Guy scene*
Posted by Rudi | July 21, 2007 10:18 PM