PodCast Montreal

So this great convention happened over the weekend called PodCamp Montreal.  Basically a bunch of “social media geeks” gathering to talk about podcasting and social media.  I was able to attend a few talks Saturday morning and then watch some of the live streams later on while I puttered away.  And I have to say it exceeded my expectations and I loved it.

Most certainly the highlight for me, as a musician and social media fan, was a talk from Mitch Joel and David Usher.  Yes… David Usher, one of my rockstar idols from high-school, standing there talking about blogging.  I was dying to meet him afterwards, but what do you say when you walk up to one of your teenage-era idols?  Probably something stupid, thats what.

Anyways, they had some fascinating thing to say about online presence, mainly geared towards the perspecive of a music artist but useful for anyone wanting to create and grow an online community.  I especially liked the concept of the walled garden, the point being that any social media site that tries to make itself the destination, rather than the utility, is doing it wrong.  David Usher started an interesting discussion about it on his blog, CloudiD, last week.

As someone fairly new to the complexities and richness of the social media realm (obligatory Myspace and Facebook profile aside) it was an inspiring and eye-opening weekend.  For some more random thoughts and photos of PodCast Montreal (I didn’t have a camera) visit the blog of a newly-made acquiantance, Montreal Social Media.

Thanks for reading my first real post ever (yay!) and in the future I promise to post pictures, movies, and all those great things in the context of the theme of my blog.

p.s. PodCamp: thanks for the t-shirt

Update: You can now view some of the Podcamp Montreal sessions here.

-W-