Some of these comments seem misplaced. (Score 2, Insightful)

Blogging is just the start. Much more can fill niches in the ecosystem with this machine readable web. Free speech (spoken, written), searching for relevant materials, information flow, relationships. Incidentally, I would have had better luck finding your comments had you had your own blogs and tracked back to other blogging stories than I had looking in these comments.

As for the conference its the most open and accessible I know of with live audio, active IRC rooms, a wiki, audio available afterwords and no vendor advertising. They even put the IRC window up on screen at times. And its held on the weekends so I can attend virtually.

Anyhow I just wanted to represent - oh and try podcasting if you haven't it's the shiznat. Peace out.