Podcasting Matures with Pod-Conference
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The first conference in any young field is enough to make any organizer nervous. I don't know if Tim Bourquin was nervous, but he needn't have worried. With more than twice as many attendees as expected, the Portable Media Expo and Podcasting Conference was a huge success. Keep reading for some of the highlights.
Once again, I’m feeling a little like I’m on the wrong coast for covering the hottest news on the spot. As I write these words, it’s the latter half of November 2005, and instead of looking forward to the traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner with all the trimmings, I’m looking back at something I wasn’t able to attend: the Portable Media Expo and Podcasting Conference. Held for the very first time this year in Southern California, the two-day conference attracted 2500 attendees eager to learn how to make the most of this disruptive medium.
In fact, the conference was so successful that the organizers have already started planning the next one. That one will be held September 29-30, 2006, at the Ontario Convention Center in Ontario, California. The first conference, and the fact that the organizers are moving so quickly to put together the next one, underscores a point that came through crystal clear even to someone just reading the news releases on the opposite coast: podcasting isn’t just a niche technology anymore. It’s gone mainstream.
Anyone attending the conference must have been pleasantly exhausted by the end of it. The expo floor alone featured 55 companies showing off a range of products and services of interest to podcasters. When their legs got tired from walking the show floor, attendees could take in a variety of classes and demos in the exhibit hall, or go to eight keynote speeches and choose from 32 different panels. The fact that four panels took place during any one hour must have forced some unpleasant decisions on attendees who could only be in one place at a time. I can’t say that I would have had an easy time myself choosing between such panels as “How NASA Uses Podcasting to Reach Space Enthusiasts” and “Audience Metrics for Portable Devices: Answering the ‘Who’ and ‘How Many’ Questions.” Indeed, one reporter who attended the conference expressed the hope that next year’s planners will allow time in the schedule for networking over lunch!
Fortunately for folks like me, who couldn’t make the conference, or those who could make the conference but found themselves facing tough decisions about what to go to, there will be an alternative available. Tim Bourquin, the organizer of the conference, said that recordings of the sessions will be available in a few weeks, for a fee. Or, for those with relatively little money who are long on patience, the company IT Conversations is planning to release free versions of the sessions at the rate of one a week, with the first file likely to be available by December 5.
Next: Keynotes and Sessions >>
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