sean.blog

I did not take a trip to San Francisco this week to attend O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Expo, but I have been keeping up with the people and the sessions at the conference thanks to Jeremiah Owyang and a streaming video service called uStream.tv.

I have “watched” conferences through RSS feeds, Twitter and other text based methods in the past. I have even gotten to listen to podcasts and vidcasts of the conference sessions after the fact, but this has been different. Jeremiah and Robert Scoble are actually broadcasting live from the sessions and from the conference. Ustream offers and IRC based chat room for the video stream, and it has allowed those who are watching to ask questions and get them answered. It is much closer to actually attending the conference than just reading about it.

Jeremiah did a great job of engaging people in conversations, and letting those of us online participate. I was a bit odd, as has been mentioned, having him reply by voice to the questions we typed. The interaction though was top notch and well worth the oddness of the setup. While we did experience some issues with the streaming video, mostly related to getting a steady, reliable and fast wireless connection, it was a very nice way to watch and listen to what is going on.

We spent a little time discussing whether this sort of streaming video was something for conference organizers to fear or embrace. In my opinion this should be embraced. There was no way I could have attended this conference this year. I really didn’t know anything about the conference, who attends, and what the look and feel of the conference was. Having seen it, I must say I would consider attending in the future. I think having a broadcast is a win win situation for the conference organizers, conference attendees, and those of us who don’t have the means or time to attend. I heard it mentioned that it would be cool for conference attendees to be able to watch and listen in on other sessions. Organizers could certainly charge a small fee for those not in attendance to watch the streams, and potentially add an additional source of revenue for the conference. The exposure that Web 2.0 got because of the broadcasts this year will certainly get a few people excited enough to attend next time. I just think that this idea is a great one for conferences.

I really want to thank Jeremiah and Robert for taking the time to do this. Both of them have mentioned how tiring being “live” is, but I am glad they took the time and expended the energy. As it turns out, I will be in San Francisco for an unrelated conference next week. I don’t plan to broadcast live from that conference.