Have you ever gone to an event and it seems like all the cool stuff happened in the next room, or right before you walked in? That’s sort of the experience I had at Web 2.0 last week in San Francisco – but when you are choosing between 5-6 different simultaneous sessions, I suppose that’s bound to happen. It didn’t help that the 3 day event was held in Moscone West, which is a conference center apparently used to store other conference centers during off seasons. Don’t get me wrong, I got to participate in a lot of great sessions & discussions, but there was so much happening that I’ve found myself twice saying “that was at web 2.0 too? I must have missed it!”. Just a few personal highlights:

1. Right as I was entering the second floor session hallway on the first day, the giant twitter stream monitor showed a random user’s tweet recommending the video platforms quick.tv and overlay.tv – it’s always good to see .tv out and about!

2. I think one of the best speeches had to be Ben Huh’s keynote on “Becoming One with Internet Culture” which gave surprising depth and insight to the phenomenon of LOLcats. There’s a really great interview on WSJ with Ben on the difference of Internet culture and pop culture, and what the definition of a “meme” really is.

3. I liked Ken Shafer’s session on “My Name is URL” – it was truly a good bridge between domains and social media as Ken talked about the importance of identifiers, and the effectiveness created when you provide your users a holistic experience.

One of the truly great things about this event was the opportunity to meet so many awesome people – sometimes the hallway conversations can be a more enthralling discussion than the actual session! I guess that will have to make up for the fact that I felt like I missed something – either that, or next time I go I’m cloning myself to take more notes.