jonnygoldstein.com

This article is an attempt for me to process some of memories I have of Vloggercon 2006. I ran out of steam linking everyone’s name to their sites, but it’s not out of disrespect….it’s just exhaustion. Anyway, if you were at Vloggercon 2006, you had your own unique adventure. Here’s a little bit of mine, with the help of all the people who contributed to the flickr vloggercon photo pool.

It all started in December of 2004 when Shawn Van Every suggested that I swing by Vloggercon 2005 the next month in January.

I went to Vloggercon 2005 as an interested audience member. A lot of the stuff was really technical, but once they got to showing the kind of collaborative work people had done in the vlogging world, I was hooked.

Vloggercon 2005 was held at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, packing a single classroom. That’s Chuck Olsen impersonating the terminator onscreen.

After a year of explosive growth in the world of internet video in general, and videoblogging in particular, it was clear that we needed a much bigger venue for Vloggercon 2006. After frustrated attempts to secure a space in New York, Jay Dedman and Ryan Hodson moved to San Francisco, where people like Shlomo Rabinowitz had the necessary connections and experience in organizing conferences to make this next iteration of Vloggercon happen . A group of interested people started meeting up regularly in the Bay Area to start planning Vloggercon 2006. (also pictured Jennifer Myronuk)

A big conference doesn’t happen without cash. Dave Toole of Outhink got the sponsorship ball rolling.

Vloggers started getting the word out via the the web and good old fashioned paper flyers.

My company Vision Education and Media Sponsored me to go out to SF so I could let the world know about the amazing teen videobloggers we taught in the Bronx in the BX21 technology education afterschool program.

The day before the conference I spoke at the SF Apple Store about some of my personal vlogging exploits along with a lineup of other media makers. The house was packed. Thanks to Ryan Hodson for organizing this.

I showed off the BX21.org website, home to the works of the Bronx students we taught to vlog this year.

It was good to meet up with old (one month=1 year in vlogger years) vlogging friends such as Make Magazine vlogger, Bre Pettis. In the less than one year I’ve known Bre, we’ve started collaborating on wearethemedia.com, and he and Jennifer Rundle visited us in NYC. That’s the power o’ vlogging folks!

Peter Van Dijck. In his thoughtful keynote, urged us to make our voices heard to influence the path of web enabled media. before that path hardens into a toll-choked, billboard-strewn. one way street into the pockets of mega corporations.

That afternoon Bre Pettis, Jen Simmons, and moi led the educators session. The hall was big and bursting with people.

Here I am waxing educational as I talk about BX21, the program in which we taught over 100 teens to videoblog in the Bronx. I created the curriculum and managed the program which had ten expert mentors working with students from several public high schools at the Evander Childs and Morris campuses. I’m so proud of our students and so grateful for the hard work of our mentors. Despite the craziness of starting something this big, we had a good year, and the kids got a lot out of it.

Jen Simmons discussed her experiences teaching college level students to videoblog at Temple University.

And Bre Pettis recounted what it was like incorporating vlogging into his elementary and middle school classes. I don’t have a picture of Bre from the session, so here’s pic of Bre doing what vloggers do best–video themselves!

This is what it looked like from the stage. The woman in the red shirt, Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV introduced us. Thanks Irina!

After a hard day of preparation, discussion, presentation, and schmoozing, a huge horde of vloggers descended upon Potrero Hill for a poolside party sponsored by Click.TV. Here is a crazy slow exposure picture of Lyle and myself.

More poolside good times:

The party was a great opportunity to connect with vloggers the work of whom I had seen online, in person. Pictured are Phillip Clark of Swordfight and Lyle. Lyle is hoisting a cup of beverage which was provided by a group blog about vlogging to which I contribute, wearethemedia.com. I am sporting my “Oh no, the paparazzi have caught up with me again!” face.

The next day I had the honor of moderating a bunch panels on the following topics: creating strong characters, oral history, interactvity in vlogging, remixing, and Node 101 and the digital divide.

Node 101 and dig divide w/jonny

Leslye asks a question

Here are the guys from the interactivity panel.

Here I am moderating the character panel. Whover put this one together was either a lunatic or a genius, with aesthetic opposites the PAN (Public Address Network) and French Maid TV on the same panel, with Ask a Ninja somewhere in the middle.

Tim Streeter of French Maid TV unapologetically characterized his show as “Spectacle.”

Chris Weagel cut into Tim Street’s French Maid TV denouncing it as base, soulless, and mercenary.

Michael Verdi denounced French Maid TV as being T&A pure and simple, with no serious use of character, an example of the worst aspects of broadcast TV, migrating to the vlogosphere.

And last, but not least, Kent Nichols of Ask a Ninja was there, giving away free Ask a Ninja T-shirts. I grabbed one for my friend and AAN fan Mikey Sklar, but I lost it later in the day. Sorry Mikey.

Kent Phillips and I trying to get the sound right for the digital storytelling & oral history panel.

Here is the panel in all its glory from left to right: Susan Kitchens, Denise Atchley, Jennifer Myronuk, and JD Lasica.

Camerawoman Susan Kirkpatrick chimes in with her take on oral history

And I moderated one session in the big hall, the remix event. Here’s Josh Leo rockin’ the remix.

Casey McKinnon and Ted Tagami

Kenyatta

View from mainstage

Jan at work

Carl Weaver on Community Vlogging

Eric Rice and Eve

Zadi and Casey

The hallways were packed with shmoozing, posing, and videoing vloggers. Former Microsoft uberblogger Robert Scoble was swarmed with people interviewing him. I found out later in the day that he had announced he was leaving Microsoft, which accounted for the video frenzy around him.

Raymond, Brett Gaylor, Kent Bye, Josh Wolf

Digital Bicycle

Pool Party

Anthony and Aaron. The Anthony took tons of pics, many of which I’m using in this article. Aaron Flores is a guy that I can’t believe I didn’t meet at the conference, since I’ve been reading and viewing his stuff since I started vlogging.

Dave and Lyle

Jenn and Raymond

I met Marjorie Kase at the pool party. As our conversation wound down, she whipped out her business card, which I was totally oblivious to. Finally she thrust propelled it in my face and said—here take it! Then she moved on. Yikes. I gotta sharpen my shmooz chops.

I didn’t meet Bonny, but she “meat”-ed many vloggers in the funniest video I’ve seen to come out of Vloggercon 2006.

Verdi and Kent

Mary Hodder of Dabble at Vloggercon

Andrew in the hallway

Nadav and Dutch crew. I met Nadav the day after Vloggercon 2006 at the Node 101 temporary HQ. We chatted a little in Hebrew, which I really enjoyed.

One crazy thing about Vloggercon is you get to see all these people who you
have already met online…or at least observed. I wish I would have gone up to each of those people and told them how much I appreciated their work. I did do this with Lukas though, and I’m glad I did.

Enric channelled Bob Dylan at Karaoke.

Randy Mann

Daniel and Ryan

Bill Streeter and Jonny

Markus @ NODE101 pad

Cam Vs. Cam. Steve Garfield and his couch mate get caught in a vlogtronic feedback loop.

Scary Jonny

Sean Gilligan

Anthony and Jonny. If you go through the Vloggercon photo pool at flickr, you’ll notice a few people who went around and photographed themeselves with everyone they could get to sit still for 10 seconds. Anthony is one of those people. I think it’s great. They are kind of like the glue that holds the whole thing together when I go through the pics.

Jonny and Eli Chapman

This is a pic Bre took of himself right after Vloggercon 2006. I can relate to his sense of exhaustion. A week and half later, and I’m almost recovered.

Jay Dedman closed out Vloggercon 2006 by saying how much he hated goodbyes. The crowd broke into spontaneous applause for the work he and Ryanne did in catalyzing this event. The weekend was a powerful one for me, too big too grasp in its entirety, too important to miss.