Vloggercon Revolution

This past weekend, San Francisco was again host to a social revolution. The video blogging crowd came together for Vloggercon 2006. This experiment in participatory media gained both clarity and strength as it celebrated its unofficial 1 year anniversary. I’m calling it the Woodstock of Video Blogging, or “Vidstock”! (I checked and yes… the domain name is already taken).

The conference rooms and hallways were filled with energy, excitement, conflict and cooperation as every stripe of video blogger came together to celebrate the movement’s successes and frustrations.

From the humorous personal journals of the RichardShow, to the grassroots political action of EchoChamberProject, to the edgy exploratory docu-episodes of American King to the blatantly exploitive FrenchMade TV, we were a diverse group; but we found unity in celebrating our young community. The euphoria and energy were palpable.

But amid the celebration, conflict did occasionally erupt. At times the room would divide into two camps: the grassroots activists and the commerce-oriented show producers. The activists would accuse the producers of selling out to big media. The show producers would shrug and say, “we’re trying to make money”.

But the conflicts were infrequent and, when they did erupt, would soon dissolve when someone pointed out that the diversity of the group was, in fact, its strength.

Several corporations were in attendance. Some were high profile (like Yahoo and Intel) with sponsorships to promote their brand, while others had execs attending in stealth mode, cruising the halls and quizzing vloggers to get a sense of where the movement was going.

Being the conference commando that I am, I attended with a list of people (mostly fellow show producers) who I wanted to meet. I researched them ahead of time with the helpful Vloggercon attendee list. I met all but one of the people on my list -- Robert Scoble, who scored the biggest headlines of the weekend. I will be posting insights from my conversations over the next few weeks.

I recorded some interviews which I hope to post soon. That will of course, turn this blog into a vlog. Converting me from an observer into a participant, which is the point of this nascent revolution.