Blogtalk 2 was a great conference, not just for the presentations (too many, too tightly packed) but also for the interesting collection of people that attended, and the intensive multi-modal interaction they spawned. The fact that it was held together with Blogwalk 3 also helped, as this gave some of us an extra day to get to know each other.

Vienna was also a great location - good weather, good walking and beautiful architecture. A few of my photos from the city are here.

My own presentation has received some kind praise from nice people, but there were others I enjoyed more....

First, the session highlights:

• Joerg Kantel: Turn your radio on - tweaking and tuning your weblog for the future - weblogs as community media
• Jon Hoem: Videoblogs as 'collective documentary' - collaborative editing of video footage using SMIL
• Torill Mortensen: Dialogue in slow motion -- the pleasure of writing and reading across the web - on the difference between oral and written communication modes on weblogs, and its implications for weblog communication
• Elmine Wijnia - Understanding weblogs: a communicative perspective - a second theoretical piece, asking to what extent is comunication possible through blogs, using the ideas of Habermas and Van Dijk
• JJ Merelo - Blogsphere community formation, structure and visualisation - network analysis applied to weblog interconnections
• Horst Prillinger - Are you serious - are weblogs journalism (no!) and should they be frivolous or not? He concludesw that the community of weblogs is a tremendous oral history resource
• Anjo Anjewierden / Rogier Brussee / Lilia Efimova: Shared Conceptualizations in Weblogs - using a concept matching tool to identify related issues and conversations in weblogs
• Barbara Ganley: Blogging as a Dynamic, Transformative Medium in the Writing Classroom of an American Liberals Arts College - great insight into a successful use of weblogs in the classroom to change the relationship between teachers and students

Aside from these individual presentations that stood out for me, there were several other themes that presenters covered, and which deserve greater attention than I am paying them here:

• Interesting insights into the Weblog networks of Germany, Austria, Czech Republic and Spain
• A series of reports back from people involved in trying to use weblogs in education
• Lots of discussion on weblogs becoming more private and more limited in reach, for specific purposes, rather than all trying to win the largest general audience they can

General impressions:

After attending two ETCON events in the United States, which are bigger and more fast-moving, it was a real treat to see the diversity of opinions, cultures and approaches that Europe has to offer. Of course, it was a touch more theoretical than the US approach, which is both a good thing and a bad thing depending on your point of view, but what I found most impressive was the open, non-commercial sharing of ideas and experiences that the conference made possible.

This was also a more sociable environment, which was due to having a smaller group of people, fewer self-styled "important people" and also a very walkable and agreeable city as a backdrop. Finally, I cannot resist a final mention of the wonderful Mr. Horst Prillinger, city guide extraordinaire and mein host for the week.

Another feature of the sociable nature of the conference was our use of Rendezvous, chat and collaborative note taking. Although I started the first document that others joined, I soon crept off for coffee and the lovely Suw and Stephanie took the lead for the rest of the conference. Stephanie has written up her impressions of this at some length.

Gripes:

There was no water provided, nor decent coffee, which meant I had to find sustenance elsewhere and miss parts of some of the sessions. The Wifi was poor and could have been better, even on 1Mbit/s. There were slightly too many sessions and not enough discussion between them.

Anyway, if Thomas decides to do it again, I'll be there for sure!