Tonight’s live blog is being written and published by Raul of Hummingbird604.com (update your bookmarks!)

“Widgets aren’t just little pieces of portable code. Widgets are about opening up your message to your supporters and the community. Widgets represent a shift towards using online tools, and online thinking, to connect with more people and build deeper relationships with the people you are already connected with.

Vancouver’s 3rd Net Tuesday will explore the stories of nonprofits that are spearheading this revolution as well as demo a new widget platform.” - [Meetup.com]

Presenters tonight include:

Jason Mogus, Communicopia
Scott Nelson, FearlessCity.ca
Keith Grennan, Sprout
and the evening will be moderated by Sarah Pullman.

Update: 6.11pm (more…)

Tonight’s WordCamp Vancouver has received the stamp of approval by the WordPress overlords and has been listed on WordCamp Central, the official WordCamp site.

WordPress is build on PHP and a backend MySQL database. In plain English it’s what millions of people (including Miss604.com) use as a blogging and content management system. Here’s the official description: “WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.” [WordPress.org]

I’ll be liveblogging everything except my own session of course, you can find the rundown of the topics and speakers here.

Note: The Network Hub is a great place for meetings and such but I’m afraid it’s way too tiny for the abundance of WordPress newbies, gurus and enthusiasts who expect to attend tonight. Make sure you show up early to grab a spot as I’m certain it will be ’standing room only’ within a few minutes.

Update: Live blog to begin around 5:00pm PT on this post/at this URL.

Update: Rastin is doing an introduction and thanking the sponsors (big thanks to Automattic) NOTE the after Camp drinks are taking place at FLUX Bistro in Gastown (no longer Steamworks). This place is getting packed, with folks sitting on the floor in front of the presentation area it truly is like a camp fire.

Update: First up is Jeff Kee from Synchronous a company the specializes in custom WordPress theming. He’ll be covering: custom templates, custom front pages, php/html, template tags, plugins, and modifying widget.php source. What a mouthful! Glad he’s covering these things, I tinker with templates and themes on a daily basis and it’s really helpful for those who want to go beyond the standard WP themes that are available.

Jeff just made an important note: the front page of your WordPress site does not necessarily have to be your blog page. This is customizable in your Dashboard > Options >Reading. You could have a welcome screen then a page called “blog” that your posts will be published to.

He also touches on loops, custom templates and call tags. Although this may be over the heads of some of those in the room (especially if you’re just on WordPress.com) I think this is important information. Folks need to know that you can pretty much do anything in terms of customizing your WordPress site.

Plugins are great because anyone is free to create and mix with the functionalities of WordPress. You can add design elements or simply make your blogging life easier with the usage of plugins (… especially spam-blocking ones like Akismet). Jeff also mentioned the cforms plugin, which I also use, it’s really intuitive and customizable. I realize I’m saying the word “customize” a lot but it just fits.

Update: Monica Hamburg is up next and she’ll be addressing some basics of blogging: how to write those interesting posts, then how to use social media to promote them. She’s listing off various blogs that she likes as they all have personality, humour, and the authors are specialists in their fields ie. MyNameisKate.ca.

Keep in mind, the web is visual, break posts into shorter paragraphs and remember the short attention span generation. Basically, make things easy to read, truncate longer posts or have a series of posts, “check back next week for the next installment”. Tip: RSS feed or a “subscribe now” button should be clearly visible. Tip: Use categories! People can search for these elements and it’s also a good indicator of what the post would be about (not to mention the added SEO). Tip: Irresistible titles! Be specific, be engaging, grab people with your first line… which is always the title. Sample: “where are my pants?”. I can’t capture all of the hilarious examples that Monica is listing off but I’ve been giggling for the last 3 minutes.

Remember supply and demand when it comes to post content. Create a conversation, leave it open to comments, have a voice and allow others to have a voice. Example: NetChick’s ability to get dozens of comments on a blog post because she states her piece, informs, creates content etc. and then opens the floor for discussion. Also, remember to comment tactfully note: CommentLuv adds a link to the commenter’s latest post on their own site. Use Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon etc. to promote your entries - make your posts “bookmark..able”.

Update: I’m up next folks! (Raul has some notes on my talk here)

Here are some of the plugins I mentioned in my talk:
Flickr Photo Album: As seen in my screencast - easily insert your Flickr photos (any size and with links) into your blog post.
Flickr RSS: Displays a badge of your Flickr photos on your site. You can chose to display only certain tags, most recent, and chose the number of thumbnails to display. This also works with Duane and Dale’s WPtouch plugin.
Add Quicktags: Add custom “quick tags” that will appear when you’re composing a post ie. one that will insert the div tags, line breaks, or template links back to Flickr photos. You will have to code the properties for the div tags in your CSS (regarding alignment and caption properties etc.)

Update: Okay hopefully I was somewhat informative - Duane is up next, mostly talking about his Brave New Code work and mobile blogging. If you haven’t heard about WPtouch yet, I suggest you check it out!

Update: After the quick break Kulpreet is up next talking about WordPress as a Content Management System. Custom field GUI, custom write panel, Enzyme and Get Custom and blogroll.

The custom fields option at the bottom of your post is often neglected but in the case of a plugin or mashup you can populate these fields to create grids or custom wording at the bottom of a post.

Here’s an example I can give - if you have Duane’s WordTwit app installed, look at the bottom of a published post and you’ll see: “has_been_twittered” which should equal “yes” if already published.

Kulpreet also addresses Custom Write Panels so you can select the type of post you’re writing ie. check write an event, write a review etc. and that post will be customized. Then for that post type, fields will appear that will help you fill in the information you’d like to supply for that type of post.

A plugin he also introduces is Enzyme, which allows you to include custom field posts and pages. You can take custom fields of one post and refer to them in another. So how do these custom fields appear in your post? Use another plugin called “Get Custom Fields” which you can get at Coffee2Code.

Update: When it comes to a blogroll, every entry in your blogroll contains specific information that you can pull from and call up using various customizations or plugins. Show the linked bloggers’ photos, latest posts, excerpts etc. just by using the fields available and the “get_bookmarks” string in the backend of your hosted WordPress site. I really didn’t know that you could do so much with custom fields.

Photos from the break with MostlyLisa and John Chow:

John Biehler also has photos up close-to-live on his Flickr.

Update: “Bloggers should just get over themselves,” okay kind of kidding but Bruce is now here to talk about the value of blogging - not necessarily monetary value but… first off, why do you blog? If you don’t have an audience can you really be called a writer? Bruce has views that are similar to Dave’s “F stats, make art.” He doesn’t write for stats or to please the numbers. Side note: he used to be a composition instructor at a university. Another side note: Bruce was recently converted to blogging and now admits, he’s addicted. “Writing is a skill like any other skill that you need to practice to be good at.”

Writing is a way to work with yourself and find your own thoughts and blogging is a fairly easy-to-use creative outlet. Enjoy it, just go out and write!

Update: I think Pete Quily just coined the term of the evening, “there’s a plugin for that”.

Update: Now there is an open discussion about the philosophies of blogging and commenting so just to tie that in - is anyone reading this live blog?

Update: Duane just discovered the WayBack machine, apparently his site in 2003 was duane.servebeer.com.

Update: John Chow is up next, “how many people think making money off blogging is evil?” while Bruce (the previous presenter) waves his hand in the air in jest. John started his blog in 2005 with a goal of part time blogging for full time money. He’s currently generating $30,000 a month off the blog. Yep, that’s a month. If you want to learn about making money off a blog, that’s his business. There are two elements to his blog, optimizing the ads and generating traffic, the two often work hand in hand. What about the content you ask? Well that just happens.

John now gets into Google Ads, something I still haven’t really figured out. Personally I don’t think after 1 year I’ve even reached the $100 mark. John gets $117 for every 1,000 page views. This is where he shows us Adsense Deluxe, a plugin that helps you optimize your d placements. John even brings up his copy cat’s site (JohnCow.com), which is a parody on him and he makes about $3,000/month.

WOW a great way to get people to purchase ads on your site is with the OLOPublishing plugin. It allows people to purchase an ad, upload a photo, you can approve it and bam, it’s up on your site. A key note is to monetize but do not compromise your content, you still need something read-worthy to get those visits and clicks. If you want to monetize your blog, advertising is NOT subtle - don’t tip toe through it, go all-in with ads to make money.

Update: Sorry followers, we have about 10 minutes left but my battery power is at 13% so I might drop out here. Anything missed will be filled in later and Raul will be adding his note from my session. We’re all heading to Flux on Water Street in Gastown in about 20-30 minutes so if you’re in the area stop on by.

Update: In the spirit of knowledge sharing and giving a shout out, I have uploaded one of my first screencasts about Flickr to WordPress (FTW!) to the competitive video sharing site Strutta as a Game. Head over to upload your screencast WordPress demos or tips, join the game, get votes, and um just try to beat me.

The April meetup for Vancouver’s Third Tuesday group will be taking place at 7:00pm at the Network Hub (422 Richards Street 3rd floor) - the video below explains.

The live blog will begin in just a few hours at this url, stay tuned for updates.

Speaker: Monica Hamburg of MonicaHamburg.com, Me Like the Interweb, and Your Dose of Lunacy.

Update: 18:55 Arriving at the Network Hub I took a seat near the back, by the window, and watched as some familiar faces filled the room. David, Nancy, Isabella, Colleen, Narvey, Tanya, Gus, and the folks from Meme Labs.

Photos will be appearing under my Flickr tag: ThirdTuesday.

Update: 19:10 Thanks to the Network Hub for providing the space this evening, man this chair is comfortable!. I just met Gregg Scott, one of my Twitter contacts.

Update: 19:15 Monica is up, ‘crowdsourcing‘ is the topic. She just asked me jokingly to make her sound a little more intelligent in the live blog, but I don’t think my words here will do her speech justice at all really. Monica explains crowdsourcing for business as opening up the playing field in terms of communications from the company, as well as clients and the general public. “Sometimes the comments on a blog post are just as interesting as the post’s content,” affirms Monica. She gives examples of crowd-powered sites, a big one being the whole Wikipedia network and moves on to the music industry with Sell A Band.

Sell A Band’s tag line is “You are the record company”, giving power to the artists and the fans - allowing them to contribute to the band’s success and funding. On to movies, there’s NetFlix which also involves user and viewer reviews. One more site is Threadless, which encourages you to be creative, they simply help deliver the good created by the masses. Personal note - all of these open concepts for funding, coding, sharing of ideas and formulas reminds me of the topics covered at today’s Open Web (my day is rounding out quite nicely).

Update: 19:30 Another example of crowdsourcing is getting your consumers to find the solution for you - using the collective intelligence using a “solvers and seekers” method. (Side note from me: huge example of crowd-sourced advertising is the Canucks Ultimate Fan contest where they got fans to submit videos and photos to become a part of the season’s advertising campaign).

Monica mentions motivations - a) here’s some money now do something b) “people will do better inherently if they’re genuinely interested in the problem,” … “Passion is far more important.” Also, “it’s essential to reward people,” reward people adequately - don’t think of crowdsourcing as free labour and free promotion. (more…)

No, Michael will not be liveblogging his own session but Raul has been gracious enough to share his liveblogging efforts with Miss604.com since I am unable to attend the event this evening. Check back now and then for updates to this post. Thanks Raul!

Rebecca and I have agreed that I’ll send her the code after the live-blog, so you should mosey over to her post as well. It’s 3:22 pm now, so I won’t be posting updates until I am actually physically there.

5:51 pm - I’ve introduced myself to Cristina Coraggio from the Canadian Journalism Federation, and set up shop here at the Social Lounge, St. John’s College (SJC). I’ve accredited myself as the official reporter for Miss604.com. I feel important

6:02pm - I’ve introduced myself to Michael Geist, indicating that I pretty much will try to type exactly as he speaks (more or less, I type over 70 wpm but who knows how things go. You’ll see). He said he’s not bothered by that or by whether or not I get something wrong. I promised to drop a comment on his blog so that he can know if I got what he said right. The room is starting to fill. And for those of you geeky types - he is using a Mac (although UBC set him up on a PC - hehehe). We’ll see if there are any compatibility issues. (more…)

Meet Your Monsters: Solving Traditional Broadcast Webmares

“The digital world is not all that scary - despite the monsters under your mainframe! This panel will focus on successful case studies in how the medium is being used effectively. The players will present new models for the future.” [Bridging Media - Session]

Panelists:

Boris Mann: Raincity Studios and Bootup Labs
Robert Ouimet: At Large Media
Mark Rocchio: StudioB Productions
Chris Mizzoni: StudioB Productions

Boris starts off with Giant Ant Media as an example - they have an audience of 800,000 on some of their videos, “how many of you would like an audience of 800,000?” …”and did they wait for funding? No.”

Another example is CommonCraft - their business is explaining technologies in plain English and they started doing their videos for free. They were such a success online that big companies came up to them to ask if they can create these types of videos for them, and that’s how they started to make money.

Why do you have to sit and wait for someone to give you hundreds of thousands of dollars? Why can’t you start off small?

Mark from StudioB speaks about broadcasters and how they’re moving toward including digital shorts within the licensing deals for shows or films. They’re moving in the right direction but aren’t getting much traction with tons of funding and a fancy web department, so his point is you simply need to get content out there ie. those digital shorts, which serve as a jump start.

Chris is the traditional print guy on the panel who talks about all the other things that come with book publication these days such as including a multimedia CD, making a website or even producing a podcast about a book that is to be released.

Robert is a CBC veteran touching on how broadcasting is a single outlet. He started out getting a $3 million budget for a project, which he follows up by saying “woo!” Boris pipes up to ask him if the “woo” was facetious like, “oh that’s not much” or “oh wow that’s a lot” because I think most of us here would get pretty darn excited about getting $3 million for a project, I know I would at least. Trying to tap into getting a major broadcaster to fund a project is simply one outlet you can deal with. “Get help, talk to people who have business, that may not be web businesses but are good business people.” … “Take ideas, forge business deals (that may not even be sexy) but get it done.”

Mark addresses this issue from a digital animation studio perspective, “we brought animation production back to Canada that hadn’t been here since He-Man.” He mentions that it’s actually cheaper to animate here than in the Philippines, however in the early stages of their studio they were extremely dependent on funding. “We’re still in that traditional world,” but they needed to take control of their own destiny and lead the company where it needed to go. Mark also praises Vancouver as a true hub and leader in digital media and animation.

Chris confirms as a writer/author that he writes when he can, he doesn’t even have a publisher anymore, but he still does it. Boris to Chris, “how can yo afford to just sit there and create content?” he’s being a little silly of course as Boris’ point is to produce, make content, and the rest follows.

A commenter in the audience says he’s seeing two approaches here: “Sell your soul to the devil,” and the “Colonel Sanders model where you live out of your car until you sell your recipe.” Although, the conversation is moving over to the Radiohead model, “pay what you can” to get something you want to get.

Give you users more experience, the whole “bonus features” and added value concept. Why do people pay for wifi at some locations? Convenience factor. Have an entrepreneurial mind set, don’t think about how you’re a starving Canadian artist waiting to be funded - asserts Boris, “make the content, make it excellent, that’s what will get you the eyeballs.” Think about alternative distribution channels as well.

Mark brings up convergence - being able to watch whatever you want to watch on any given monitor. Movies on XBox or the computer? Sure.

Monique, who used to work at Raincoast books, says they used to think about the book as just the beginning of the story, there was so much more to create and generate to connect people with the ideas surrounding it.

A final comment from the audience thanks Megan and Erica for all their hard work with today’s conference. On to the thank yous, a big one to Vera’s for lunch, and everyone else listed on the sponsor page. Miss604.com was also the official media sponsor, with these here live blogs.

Monetize, Monetize, Monetize!

“Where’s the money? How do we get it? Changing the mentality of the traditional business model is the name of the game. Case study examples and conversation around how building an online presence and community strengthens producers’ abilities to monetize multi-media platforms and projects.” [Bridging Media - Session]

Panelists:

Jordan Behan: Tell Ten Friends and Strutta
James Sherrett: Work Industries
Jennifer Ouano: Elastic Entertainment
Monica Moore: Telefilm Canada

Kicking off the monetization talk, there’s an introduction about the history of websites and the idea of doing business online for an audience. The example given is the Seattle Mariners website, that was the first MLB team to have a website that featured ticket purchases and schedules. Early hurdles were as simple as getting a domain name that applied as their team name was already taken so it had to be bought out.

James is the first speaker who asserts making money is not a goal - having a valuable service, making money will follow - but it is an outcome. He also bring up an essay by Kevin Kelly about what you need to understand about the web that is different - essentially that the web is a copy machine. Jennifer follows up by stating she truly dislikes the term “monetization”. The focus should be how to get money to produce the content, followed by making money from that content. Just try concepts and “see what sticks.”

Jordan speaks to his experience selling print advertising - “local advertising works because it’s relevant to you.” He uses Google Ads as an example since they are relevant to what you have done when they are presented. Also, investors want a return on said investment therefor ads are an integral part of making that happen (as Jordan passes the mic to Monica from Telefilm). “How can we create a channel that allows the advertiser to find the audience it wants.” Which segues right into James talking about AdHack, which is basically user-generated advertising, using a sort of digital word of mouth. “Mass media and mass marketing to micro media and micro marketing.”

Comment from the audience, why is advertising the model that is being focused on when it comes to monetizing? He uses an example of how some people pay to not be bothered by something or to not see ads in the first place. Jennifer brings up the other option, which is funding, and passes the mic to Monica. “We want to see that the products that we finance get the eyeballs.” (more…)

Buzz Builders: Using Multi-platforms To Build A Buzz and An Audience Around Your Project

“From film to television to the internet, defining your audience is an integral portion in the conceptualizing stage of a project. Are you using the accessible channels of communication to speak to your audience, draw a crowd and create buzz around your work? This panel will focus on, and show examples of, the use of various mediums and technologies to build a community and get your project to your audience.” [Bridging Media - Session]

Panelists:

Colleen Nystedt : Movieset.com
Darren Barefoot: Capulet Communications
Mark Leiren-Young: TheTyee and the film The Green Chain
Nilesh Patel: Roaming Pictures

Colleen gives an introduction about people are spellbound by the process of movie making, “people will pull over and watch us park the trucks.” Her goal was to put these insights into the film production world, online - so the filmmaker can draw in fan experience and it won’t have to interfere with the actual production of the movie. “You can build community around your film,” saying how exposing films to an audience in their infant stages you can get a feel for the audience, get stats, data metrics etc. you can take that information to the distributors.

Mark’s introduction gives his background in theatre and as a writer for local newspapers. He’s making a movie, writing on blogs, and even created a podcast series on The Tyee, which has ended up being longer than the movie and has been picked up on the National Film Board site. He’s got some insights about selling his columns online, and if he were to give the rights to one news organization he wouldn’t be able to sell it to another since it would then be syndicated online.

Darren’s talk was brief until Carol prompted him to speak about his eBook, the Social Media Marketing Playbook. He delves into social media, its powers, its downfalls, and brings up the “Scoble Starfish”.

Nilesh Patel is a filmmaker who directed a picture that is surrounded by much controversy but has thrived online, Brocket99.

Darren quickly mentions Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fans, an essay about how to be an innovator and have a true grasp on an audience, you need 1,000 true fans. (more…)

John and I were whisked off to the Bridging Media conference this morning thanks to PR queen (and fellow West End resident) Colleen Coplick. Upon our arrival at the Hanger (which really is a hanger… big huge loading doors, lack of sufficient power sources and heat) I ran into Kris, Darren, and of course organizer Megan Cole. It’s great to see these important players at these events, and it’s always nice to hear them speak on topics in which they are all well-versed.

We’ve just been informed that in order to power the screen behind the presenters the coffee maker will need to be turned off. I’m currently running on 47% battery life so hopefully I can boost that during a break sometime soon.

The speakers/panelists are sat in the middle of the room, in a casual semi-circle, with a comfy looking leather ottoman between them. We’re just waiting for a) some power and b) some wifi so that I can post this, then we’ll get underway.

First panel is Broadcast and Social Media 101: A Snapshot of Both Worlds

“This session is intended to act as an overview of both communities to help create an understanding of each industries’ process. This panel will consist of Broadcasters, Producers and Digital Media Leaders”.

Kate Trgovac - President, Lint Bucket Media (social media and co-creation) - OneDegree.ca
Kris - President, Raincity Studios - Drupal community development, working with big name media companies.
Leah Mallen - Producer, Twofold Films Inc.
Gary Marcuse- Programming Executive for the CBC in BC

Leah is up first speaking to how the government of Canada is supportive to media and film with many programs and grants, but how do you actually build a business around your productions and content? Going viral to getting licenses, subsidization, tax credits etc.

Television is driven by its audience and reality TV is taking over, but there are now initiatives to find more content online or it’s even driving people back into movie theatres to watch things like documentaries. Leah discusses the challenges, hurdles, rights management etc. when you are a producer of branding entertainment. (more…)