And to finish off the handy guide to search friendly key terms - Marriot, Boulder, Colorado, keynote, talks, papers, beer.

So, it's the end of day two of the conference (technically it's early day three...jet lag messes you up) and I thought I really ought to say something. But what to say, how much detail to go into? Lets talk meta-blogging the blog conference from an anecdotal perspective.

People (often) want to know what other people think of them: for example, if one gave a presentation at a conference, was one any good and were people interested in one's work? Traditionally, this can be hard to determine. However, when people write blogs, they may be inclined to comment upon events in which they have participated. When said event is a blog conference, then participants are talking about blogs and a majority (though very distinctly not all) are writing blogs.

And so too cut a long confusing story short, I know that a majority of attendees will be searching for blog posts on the conference. And the majority of that majority can't help themselves but look to see what is said about them. I dare you to say it isn't true!

So what is a conscientious and agreeable blogger such as myself to do? Do I start naming names? What if I don't name someone? Is that a negative reflection of my opinion of them. This is not as silly as it may sound: we've discussed a number of times in the last couple of days the etiquette of friend requests on social networking sites. Do you accept someone you know of, but don't really know, and what does that action say. Alternatively, I could comment on everyone, but what if I had something
negative to say? Do I really want to say that? Is bad news really better than no news?

And then what about when I head down to Texas? Whether the people I meet with are bloggers or not, they know I am, and will also be inclined to see what I may or may not say about them. You know, there really has not been enough discussion at this conference about the awkward social situations that one can find oneself in when blogging. And this is not at all influenced by not finding anyone blogging about me yet (though I'm sure this is just that the relevant posts have not yet been indexed).

So, to sum up - it's good to see some old friends, a shame that others didn't make it, but it's always nice to meet interesting new people. Now do the decent thing and at least leave a comment.

You'll be pleased to hear that I have already started preparing my ICWSM presentation so I have plenty of time to get it polished. However, I now also have a second talk to prepare. Following the conference, I've been invited to visit the Psychology department at the University of Texas at Austin. I'm being hosted by Sam Gosling and James Pennebaker. So if you're in the area and want to hear me talk or just come say hi, drop me a line. This is a great opportunity and the whole trip should be very interesting indeed.