thoughtcrumbs

WebVisions 2004 Review

Alan had some scathing comments about WebVisions, most of which I agree with. However, having attended the last two years (see my comments from 2003 and 2002), I see it more as a promising fledgling conference still trying to establish (a) its level of formality (Alan, I thought Nate's untucked shirt was stylish and more on par with the audience to whom he was addressing, but I agree that Nick's overuse of the word "stuff" was a bit distracting) and (b) its size. Three years ago we fit in one room at PSU, and now, though the Convention Center is certainly large enough for the exponentially growing throng of attendees, the itty rooms we used were not. I didn't mind squeezing in, but from the back you couldn't see the panelists, especially when they didn't stand. Maybe next year Inflow could sponsor a big room rather than a bag full of schwag I won't use. But the caliber of speakers was excellent: Peter Morville, Anil Dash, Kelly Goto and year after year I leave the conference inspired. I enjoyed meeting Christina Wodtke and Paul Bausch (one of the founders of Blogger; he now runs ORblogs). Congrats to Hot Pepper for again organizing a great event.