Aeonscope | WordCamp - Day 5 (Conference)

WordCamp - Day 5 (Conference)

Introduction

Today was the first day of the WordCamp conference. The following are my notes from the day.

Breakfast

Stopped for chai and scones at the Kape on 16th Street between Sanchez and Church. Serves Filipino cuisine and a great atmosphere. WiFi access is free. Check it out if you are ever in San Francisco and want something a little more quaint off Market Street.

10am - Podcasting

Speaker: Dan Kuykendall (author of PodPress)

I have been playing with Podpress off and on for some time now but am currently not using it on this site. This is about to change. Dan’s talk was mostly about showcasing Podpress, what it can do, and where it is headed. I like the fact that it supports not only audio but video. He mentioned that while YouTube video support is not there yet he is working on it. Sweet plugin.

The hardware/software that Dan is using for his podcasting setup is:

MAudio Mobile
AKG Perception 100
Audacity (but Garage Band on the Mac is better).

11am - Blogs vs. Journalism

Speakers: John C. Dvorak and Om Malik

Always entertaining to hear John speak. I liked the fact that he supports and embraces blogging. A forward thinker that others in his field should aspire to.

12pm - Subway Sandwich Lunch

Curbed the hunger.

1pm - Kicking Ass Content Connections

Speaker: Lorelle VanFossen

Interesting lady. Energetic, boisterous, and strange but also friendly. I got a chance to chat with her later while having drinks with the rest of the WordCamp crew. I thanked her for the work she does on her site as I am an avid reader. Here are a few notes:

Write something new.
Have a fresh perspective.
Never fail to stop asking “why”. Question everything.
Think before writing/publishing. Try not to be the first but absorb and digest the information first.
Blog for you first.
Be a mirror for others. Once you find your community, they will understand and relate to you.
Blogging is like archeology. The work that we have done and will do will be a wealth of information for future generations to use. This is something we have never had before and it feels good being part of it.
Do not always complete a thought. Your audience is smart, let them fill in the blanks.
As bloggers, it is our duty to comment back on other peoples blogs and keep the conversation going.
Write timeless posts.
Push yourself and go for extremes. Good advice for anything you do.
Do not be an island, be part of the community.
Do not be afraid to fail as failure is the pathway to success.

Those are my notes but you can watch the video for yourself.

2pm - Blog Monetization

Speaker: Jeremy Wright, b5media

Not sure I learned anything outside of what I already new. His lecture was mostly a panel discussion where he brought up three people from the audience and moderated. The different types of WordPress expriences by the people on the panel was interesting but not sure if this type of information was relative to the topic.

Nice guy though. Managed to survive Dr. Pepper shots with him later in the evening.

3pm - Getting Involved with WordPress

Speakers: Lloyd Budd (WordPress Quality Assurance) and Mark Jaquith (WordPress Development)

Nothing out of the ordinary here as they spoke about the following (much of which can be grokked from the WordPress site):

Bug Tracking: trac.wordpress.org.
Documentation: codex.wordpress.org.
Source Code: Use svn co http://svn.automatic.com/wordpress.
Development Mail List: lists.automatic.com.
Development Instant Chat: Use #wordpress on freenote.

4pm - Designing the Obvious

Speaker: Robert Hoekman, Jr.

Apparently Matt really liked his book of the same name. I plan to check it out despite I thought the lecture was the worst of the day. I guess, in the last couple hours before Robert’s lecture, he decided to through his slides and improvise. Bad move, dude. Should have stuck to the slides.

Still, here are a few notes:

Web site speed matters if you want to keep users.
Surface feed syndication on your site and make sure it is understood. Use graphics or graphical documentation that illustrates the point clearly.
Show the most popular posts.
Show related posts.
Show recently viewed posts.

5pm - Whitehat SEO tips for Bloggers

Speaker: Matt Cutts, Google.

This was the best speaker of the day despite being ill prepared. Really enjoyed listening to him talk and what he had to offer. Details of Matt’s talk can be found on his site. Here are a few of my notes:

ALT Tags - Use them. They are not only good for when images do not load but for those who are blind.
Use post creation dates as they are good for giving the reader a sense of date and time as well as chronological order.
Be wary of URL address usage as it can screw up your search results. Choose one format and stick with it. For example, use www.aeonscope.net or aeonscope.net but not both.
Ad Sense - Try thinking about using the following tags in your posts to control Google Ads for a specific post rather than the entire web site (which is what you get by default):

7:30pm - Lucky 13 Bar

Open bar and with the WordCamp crew and attendees. Had a lot of fun meeting people.

Related Notes

Here are few related notes from the day starting with a few of the people I met during the day:

Crystal R. Williams - She is a slave to coffee.
Kari Unebasami - This is not her main site. I didn’t write down the link. Drat.
Julie Nelson - She is trying to create a community around summer cottages in Canada. She has a hard road ahead of her due to the elder demographic she is trying to reach. I can not even get my parents connected!
Mike Melanson - A Linux engineer using WordPress.
Harald Rudell - A systems engineer using WordPress.
Eleanor - A photo blogger.

Plugins worth checking out:

Democracy - Allows for user polling in posts.
SEO Title - Improves post title search capability.
Brian’s Threaded Comments - Thread comments like a forum.
WP Mobile - Enhances your web page so that content can be easily consumed on mobile device.

Finally, a few links:

Finding Dereck - This is an author who is using a blog to create the main character of her new book through user participation. Clever.
SOB Awards - Awarded to successful bloggers.
Google Webmaster Central Blogspot - Web master tips and tricks.
Google Webmaster Central - Tools for web masters.
Google Keyword Tool - Improves your understanding and use of web keywords.