The Macintosh Wizard And PC Tech Blog

The world’s largest social media conference, the first and only industry-wide, tradeshow and media event for all web 2.0, is known as BlogWorld and New Media Expo. It arrived like a fully loaded Airbus A380, with some of the top heavy-hitting social media experts in media, such as Mark Burnett, Emmy-Award Winning Producer and Darren Rowse, CEO of Problogger. This all happened at Mandalay Bay Resort’s convention center from October 14 – 16.

BlogWorld 2010 was one of the best networking opportunities this year with peers and new media moguls from around the world and who lead various keynotes, presentations, events and exhibits in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Mandalay Bay is one of the largest hotels on the South Las Vegas Strip capable of holding this once a year event.Having been to many technology and networking conferences before, I was excited to be once again meeting and greeting the top in their game. It was icing on top that BlogWorld happened in my literal backyard of Las Vegas. Las Vegas is one of the best places to hold conventions, it is an international destination, flights are always on special to come here, plenty of rooms, public transportation that runs 24 hours and the list continues with benefits for all visitors. I am biased as a resident though, always talking about why people should visit. But, and this is big, I can’t say that about all of the other cities I have visited for large events or conventions.

Discussions about BlogWorld, with people that I have been wanting to meet again since other events during the year on Twitter and Facebook were increasing in frequency. Friends and I were getting excited and planning a few after events. Several of the after events were for grand scale networking, like the one at the Aria hotel in CityCenter and others were for charity. The charitable event was held at The Mirage hotel with Stefanie Michaels, a popular personality on Twitter. The event was to benefit her 140Smiles campaign for Operation Smile. The popularity of sites like Twitter and with Facebook, which has 500 million users, are being utilized to further many other charitable causes.

Each day at BlogWorld was a veritable who’s who in social media, just when walking through the halls, leading up to the exhibit space. I also checked in each day on many of the location-based services, Tweeted on Twitter, made a few Facebook posts about what was happening. This took a few minutes between saying hello, snapping pictures and recording some video clips. Then there were people who saw, “the rig” I was using during the convention. “The rig” included a stereo condenser, an LED side lamp, a bracket and a Kodak digital video camera.

The Kodak video camera on “the rig” up until BlogWorld Expo, included a Zi8. I received the Zi8 at another conference in 2009 by using Twitter and answering a question for the Kodak Chief Blogger, Jennifer Cisney. Fortunately for me, the Zi8 was a workhorse of a video camera. I used it everywhere I went in and out of Las Vegas. Kodak via a new friend there, Tina, upgraded “the rig” with the new PlayTouch Zi10 to test in real life situations, during BlogWorld so we could take videos of events, interviews with social media stars and exhibitors. Some exhibitors were chosen because they were new or had a recommendation. The photo is courtesy of Kodak and can be found at http://1000words.kodak.com/post/?ID=6268315455527443847

All of the videos in the YouTube playlist at the start of the post were recorded on the new Kodak PlayTouch. It is thinner than the Zi8, starts up faster, has a touch editing system and deals with light and dark scenes faster. I’m still discovering some of the fun features of the camera. It has become my new workhorse video camera. During a recent event filled weekend in Las Vegas, the PlayTouch successfully recorded 23 events in two days. If the camera were to have had any problems, it would have been during that weekend. Thanks to all at Kodak who worked with my brother Bill and me, for making BlogWorld that much more of an excellent event.