SocialDevCamp Trip Report

SocialDevCamp totally rokced! The event was best described as:

SocialDevCamp East is the Unconference for Thought Leaders of the Future Social Web

Where is the social web going? It's going mobile, to geocentric services, and to open platforms. Join a community of like minded developers, social media gurus and thought leaders for an unconference to discuss the future of the social web.

Here is my trip report from this event:

1. Innovation in Social Media if being fueled by brilliant people who are running some really successful startups.
2. The "Amtrak Corridor" has a ton of talent. There were some really amazing people I met at this event -- some who came down from NY, Philadelphia and even Boston. There was a strong sense of community and entrepreneurial brotherhood, if you will.
3. The startup scene on the East coast is quite different from that on the West. There is very little VC funding here since most VCs in this area are super conservative. In fact from the audience members who attended the "Who Needs VCs" session perhaps only two companies had taken funding.
4. Location! Location! Location! Dave Troy gave a great talk on geolocation and his vision for the openlocation initiative. I think we will see a number of startups in this space and it will be exciting to see how devices like iPhone and others change how we find location relevant information.
5. "Semantic Web" is no longer just a vision. The session "Social Media and Semantic Web" proposed and presented by our very own eBiquity alum Dr. Harry Chen was one of the most attended session. It says something BIG is about to happen when a bunch of really smart entrepreneurs are interested in Semantic Web. Bear from Seesmic shared his thoughts and talked about how they were using Semantic Web technologies.
6. Amazon EC2 and S3 offer a fantastic alternative to startups. It is the best way to scale up your product and the benefits of using EC2 outweigh the costs. 
7. Twitter is the new business card. I have said this before, business cards are a very short lifespan. SocialDevCampers instead preferred to exchange their twitter handles and add folks by checking the #socialdevcamp interest on twitter. And I think we my have finally convinced Harry about the utility of Twitter!
8. Twitter was the best backchannel at the conference. In all the sessions, we talked about some great sites and shared resources we all knew collectively. The Twitter streams recorded all the highlights of each session for posterity. Even if you did not attend a session now you know a few things that were discussed there.
9. Lots of iPhones. Photos, Videos, Twitter messages were flying everywhere. There was even a session on the iPhone development (unfortunately I missed that one; it was tough deciding which session to attend when all seemed so good).
10. Techies know how to party hard! Thanks to the After Party sponsors, geektalk ruled at the local bar Brewers Art. This is a fantastic local microbrewery that serves 7% 10% alcohol beers. :-) Beer+ Free Food + Techies = one hell of a party!

Those who did not make it really missed out on a great event. But fret no more. Soon there will be an announcement for the SocialDevCamp being held in the Fall -- no excuses that time!

A special thanks to the organizers and sponsors for supporting this event and bringing us all together. (Blogs covering this event)