BlogPhiladelphia: Welcome and Panel: State of Social Media

Alright, so I am here at blogphiladelphia and so far the wifi is strong (yay!). Name tags only have name (boo!). Pretty cool bag of goodies including a Phillies hat (ok fine).

Josh Hallett from hyku was named as the "father of the unconference." This is my first time at an unconference which appears to mean no tools are used. Of course my demo will be using a powerpoint. Oh well, let's see what happens :) Josh notes that there are no generalizations allowed. The leaders are called "session leaders" not "moderators".

The first panel: The State of Social Media and Thoughts on the Future
Featuring: Caroline Marks (Ziddio), Vincent Veneziani (CrunchGear.com), AJ Daulerio (Philadelphia Magazine and Deadspin.com), Neal Stewart (Flying Dog Brewery), Emily King (Intelligent Travel blog from National Geographic Traveler). Moderated by Joey Sweeney, Philebrity.com

What are you looking for currently?
Caroline: Interopability between social networks - she is waiting for the trillian
Neal: Looking for it to appear a little less clunky

Emily discusses that they are using typepad while they try to decide what software the National Geographic group will go with. Hmm. She explains the struggle between maintaining trust with the brand and the want to move fast.

Vincent from CrunchGear explains how he and John Biggs joined CrunchGear and they are trying to keep their standards high by checking sources and have a good sense of humor as well. He explains the ups and downs of a blognetwork. You get a budget, get to go to trade shows for free. Crunchgear does not take comment flaming seriously and believes you will always have people who hate your site.

Caroline discusses the background of Ziddio (which is part of comcast). It seems to be a video sharing site with contests.

Overall, I think the discussion was average because it was basically Joey asking direct questions to each blogger vs. an open discussion. I would have preferred that. The short open discussion with the attendees was strong.