There's the expo floor, the sessions and the hallways, but some of the best times I had were after the show. Being able to spend some quality time with great people.
On the first night I went out to one of my favorite places, Gordon Biersch. David Tamés, CC Chapman and Drew Olanoff joined me. It was a great time. I love being able to sit around a table like that and be able to both talk to and listen to everyone else. Mmm. Marzen.
The second night, I went along to get along, and 30 people ended up walking the strip and eating at Canter's Deli. It's hard to please such a large group, but I got to spend some quality time with Jim Kirks, Charlie Baker and Molly Lynn and some new friends.
The Jim Kirks, Charlie Baker and Molly Lynn contingent joined me in a French hamburger place after the amazing Coverville show where I had a salmon burger on an onion roll and tried to ignore the drunk girl beside us who demanded to know what blogging was and how you can make money at it.
When I first walked into the Hilton Hotel, I saw the casino floor and this:
Very impressive. Lots of people were playing the Star Trek slot machines. In fact, there were lots of people walking around in Star Trek outfits. It wasn't unusual.
The Hilton/Conference Center complex is huge. To get from the Hilton to the conference center you have to walk through a maze of twisty passages that all look alike.
The funny part of the walk was seeing all the other niche conventions there were there. The government was having an FOD gathering. Foreign Object Detection.
On the New Media Expo floor I met Felicia Day from Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog.
Felicia was SO nice. She remembered that I had highlighted her web series The Guild in August of 2007.
Here's The Guild Vlog Soup episode on YouTube.
Had to get a photo with two great people, Dan McVicar and Natalie Gelman.
Dan is now living in Italy and Natalie is a full time musician. She rocked the Coverville concert at Bally's.
It was great to see Vinvin outside the Revision 3 party.
So funny that he was grabbing a pizza in a storefront. I joined him and had a few squares. Thanks Vinvin, always great seeing you.
Vinvin was also busy at the expo showing off Seesmic.
Here he is showing Felicia Day:
The iPhone sometimes makes to interesting mistakes.
Sunny Gault interviewed Zadi and Steve from Epic FU for Saturday's keynote.
They are really rocking it. I really enjoyed spending some time with Zadi and Steve. They are working on an initiative to get college students involved with EpicFu as reporters and I want to get my class at BU involved in that.
My session on Saturday went well. The goal was to give people tips on using a cellphone or other portable devices to shoot and post video to the web.
A few of the attendees received life changing tips. One of the best was how to post a YouTube video to a WordPress.com blog.
Here's the code you use:
Here's my presentation up on slideshare: Your Mobile Phone: The Ultimate Personal Media Creation Tool
The flight home was uneventful. At the airport I was able to change to an exit row seat.
When I got on the plane I had the exit row all to myself, then a man from behind me asked if he could join me so that his whole group group be together. Him in my row, the group behind.
I said ok, but then his wife sat behind me and started talking. She would not shut up. At that point I knew I had made a poor decision. I put on my headphones and watched a TV show on my iPhone.
It was the first time that I had watched something like that on my iPhone. The video quality and sound was amazing. It watched episode one of Primeval. Here's an explanation from the site:
When evolutionary zoologist Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall) discovers prehistoric creatures alive and well in the present-day, the natural world is turned on its head, and humanity faces a threat to its very existence. Unexplained anomalies are ripping holes in the fabric of time, allowing creatures from the very earliest stages of Earth's development to roam the modern world.Great show and a good experience with portable media.
There's room for both independent and professional video content on my iPhone.