And the learning continued …
I’m not a fan of blog posts of lists but noting some of the things I learned in point form is primarily for my own resources so stay with me.
1. Flickr.com Groups vs. Tags. So Flickr Groups is kind of like Yahoo Groups. You can join a group and see the group’s photos, which might be a nice thing to do at a conference like this, get everyone to join one group and then we see all the photos for our group. The other way, which seems to be what we mostly did, was tags. You can tag a photo, for example, blogsndogs, and then all photos tagged with that tag are searchable.
2. Vonage.com allows unlimited calling to the US, Canada and Puerto Rico for a flat rate of $24.99 per month. I don’t recall who was talking this up to me, it is long distance calling with your broadband and computer instead of the land line. My problem is that I have no problem with long distance calling on my land line so for now I’m not interested.
3. Apparently bloggers can become an accredited journalist for about $15 per year. Being granted protection as a member of the press or just having a press badge seems like a worthwhile thing, but I missed how you go about registering. Anyone know?
4. Zoominfo.com. No link because I don’t want to give these guys any Google juice. This is an icky service that lets you search for anyone’s employment history, bios, personal phone numbers and emails. The interesting thing is that they cache information and then display it in a pretty authoritative looking manner, but lots of stuff is old and/or incorrect. The wonderful thing is that you can become a member and correct and manage your data. Seems like holding someone’s digital identity hostage isn’t an ethical way of gaining a member base. Apparently HR people are heavy users of this service. Beware of what you post online LiveJournal users.
5. Favourite quotes from the week. “Join us for the Kool-Aid after,” which was in reference to blogging as a religion. And “I never fully understood ‘exposed skin’ until today,” which was in reference to our skin freezing after 3 minutes of exposure while dogsledding.
6. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a not-nice phrase.
7. Mappr.com is an interactive space for exploring place, based on the photos people take.
8. Lee talked about technology trends and the changing sense of community. He likes to refer to online communities as a “social” or “party.” “Community is something that each person feels on a different level. It may be across blogs, in a wiki or message board, or all of the above.” What struck me was his use of social, social like social interaction and I didn’t want to interupt the lecture but I did want to add that the prairie sense of a social perfectly embodies that sense of online community Lee was discussing. A social is a gathering of people around a common goal (such as raising money for a hockey team or for a wedding) and attendance and promotion of the event/location is based on word-of-mouth.
9. What’s a day without acronyms. CSR. Corporate Social Responsibility.
10. Lee’s version of weblog vs. message boards.
11. Cool travel blog
12. The Onion uses Drupal. If I was going to create a blog today, I’d seriously consider Drupal and using Raincity Studios to do the design. Yes yes I would. Expression Engine is what I use now and I have no complaints. It is great blog software. I know the Drupal people yawn looking at it, but if you want to do more than Typepad and Movable Type but less than Drupal. Expression Engine is the way to go. That’s my unpaid, user endorsement.
Raincity Studios is the cat’s meow. I am thrilled that they picked me and this blog to attend the Blogs n Dogs conference in Banff. It was fantastic and I met my goals: learn more, meet new people, get an extra edge on the new tools and trends. Thank you thank you thank you.