I completely overestimated my available time at Gnomedex when I made any plans for interviewing attendees. In an ideal universe, the dedicated connection we were originally given for the live stream should have been dedicated, not a wired connection pooled with all the WiFi connections at the conference. Ultimately we got a dedicated connection, which solved the initial headaches associated with the live stream and the conference location will know better next year (I'm optimistic Gnomedex 6.0 will be at Bell Harbor, because aside from the minor bandwidth issues, the facility is amazing).
Fortunately, there were plenty of people on hand with recording devices. In fact, from my view at the back of the conference room, it looked more like a massive press conference with numerous recording setups, video cameras and cameras. Geek News Central covered the opening night party. The M Show provided some candid coverage. The Podbot Podcast did this crazy recording from a robot. I know Michael Lehman was busy recording at the show, but I'm not sure if he's had time to break away from podcasting for Microsoft long enough to post the recordings. Matt May of Staccato recorded at an interview or two as well, so I can only image he'll be posting a Gnomedex wrap-up in the near future. For those who prefer video with their audio, Steve Garfield has some highlights. And I'm barely scratching the surface of all the recording going on.
This week I'm off to Where 2.0 for a massive brain-dump on geo-location services, mapping software and developing applications for all the mapping technologies now available to us through the Web. I'm a little disappointed they didn't make attendees figure out the location of the conference based on map coordinates, but that probably got shot down by the marketing team behind the event. Instead of an audio recording device in every fist at Gnomedex, I'm envisioning a room full of GPS receivers. Don't be surprised if I can't stop talking about cool mapping tricks for the next few weeks following the conference. I'm already quite obsessed with many of the ways people are linking Google Maps to other online applications, although MSN Maps and MapQuest continue to provide more accurate directions.
