If we're in the era of 'web 2.0', then it stands ti reason that we're also in the era of 'conference 2.0', doesn't it? No, I'm not saying that we're going to go un-conference on everything, but I would like to see a bit more in the area of 'social & technological awareness' around conference communications.

I'd like to get your thoughts on what makes a good social media toolset for conferences.

I've come up with these tools so far, please add your thoughts in the comments:

1. A blog (of course)
2. A wiki
3. A Frappr map (like Loic's) of conference attendees, speakers and followers
4. A del.icio.us account tracking links about the conference
5. A flickr photstream with conference photos, tagged with the appropriate keywords
6. A technorati link to the conference keywords & tags
7. Buzznet Buzzwords

What else have you all used to bring social media to your conference?
What else would you try if you had the chance?

[UPDATE] LesBlogs did a great job using social media for conference coverage.

Technorati Tags: womma+wombat

Great question!

What about these?

* audio podcasts and/or videocasts of sessions
* IRC channel (chat) for participants who can't make the conference to chat with people who are there

Good point Jackie. I had left off the IRC channel, because of some of the stuff that happened at LesBlogs, but it's a good idea!

Yep, much better if you DON'T put the IRC channel up on the screen while the speaker is talking.

Having a backchannel is most of the times a must, but it absolutly does not belong on the projector, for different reasons.

I would add plazes.com to see who is there at the place; a tool like subetha for collabrative notetaking, and of course the pre part of the conference podcast. ;o))

If the reboot blog / wiki would not be so down many times, you could see what people had put up there for as "why do I come and who do I like to encounter".

(just a note, the Lesblogs page is for the first lesblogs, the second did not work out so well regarding this)

Hi Dana,

I came across this from Rich Westerfield
s blog and thought I would chime in. We've been working for a few months on just the solution you're describing here (though there are even some hooks here we haven't planned to include yet).

We will be hopefully putting something out there this month. I'd love to run it by you and see if it suits your needs.