MediaCampLondon2 - December 2008 - Part two

This blog is continued from part one.

The actual event! recap. mediaCampLondon2, #mcl2 running through twitter and mcl2 as a tag through out the social media world. On the a very wet December Saturday I headed to Social Media Mafia's second MediaCampLondon hosted by Chris Hambly at SAE London now in new premises in Hackney. I did manage to qik blog a little but my head was in the wrong space in fact I wasn't sure which head space I was in all day. I arrived in wet dog mode! I loved mediacamp but there were aspects of the venue I struggled with. Excellent securing but the card needed to pass through every single door was a little claustrophobic.

The Sessions I attended I'm going to cover and the points that impacted on me.

Pete Wailes
Explosive Content:the art of creative content for digital audiences.

• Zero Punctuation
• Submit YouTube links to Digg
• Repoman the Opera needs a UK distributor

Joanne Jacobs
Case studies in deploying Social Media for public interest. How to drive change in the 3rd sector.

• Who will put in the effort? Conscientious, Conscious Collaboration.
• Not every project is a success.
• Every project is a learning experience.
• Clients don't always listen to what is best.
• Social media tribes are strong in London and ever so slightly competitive!

Jo's session showed the new media process needs user participation, understanding and the want or necessity to access the web presence being created. If a simple brochure site is all that will be used why create anything more? There a case for "They don't know what they want" but this is why I am passionate about online media and free service platforms. Often a client or user group doesn't know what is possible let alone know if they will use it and won't be using it if they don't know what is possible. The art of education by stealth! Adding features to a presence and a reason to use the feature especially resource, eco or time saving features as an extension to the service requested can be trialled at very little cost.

Judith Lewis
SEO 101 - Everything you wanted to know about getting found in search crammed in to this session.

• There is no such thing as a magic keyword density percentage.
• Think about tabbed browsing when creating page titles.
• I need to understand backtracking and comment more on peoples blogs.

I have listened to a few SEO practitioners and Judith talks the talk and exudes the notion she most certainly can walk the walk  with experience and humble understanding, elegance and ease. I definitely need a SEO specialist to take a look at my online presence.

Finally I was on.
Caron Lyon
2D in to 3D web presence from Pilot Theatre's home hub in Second Life. Second Life extending your web site - Guest speaker reading extracts from his work reflecting RL and SL via Second Life Nazz Lane. Writer for the Second Life Newspaper.

I had prepared for the worse. No web access or no Second Life access. No Second Life access proved troublesome as a combination of network access permissions, hardware incompatibility and my over enthusiastic kick-ass antivirus Panda things didn't go well. Earlier in the day when I tested the connection I gained Wi-fi thanks to stefan but sadly Second Life proved elusive and because the venue was Mac infested and super set up for sudio sound I was unable to connect my laptop to run Second Life or output sound so Skype, my if Second Life failed contingenct, went out the window too. The cables just weren't right...all round pegs and square holes!

I'm going to give it another go on January 10 2009 in world. The program looks like this.

Join me, Katie Reve - Virtual Stage Manager at Pilots SL hub, Neil Neilsen - Creator, Architect and owner of MediaCity and Nazz Lane - SL Journalist and writer at 4.00pm UK time on Saturday 10 January.

What is Pilot Theatre doing in SL? The 2D and 3D web.

Yes we are going to do it. Saturday 10 Jan from 4PM uk time the rerun of MediaCampLondon2's failed Second Life live link up. This time there will be no real life audience but I am keen to have a go at doing an event that works! as I'm hoping to have many more.

The plan is to begin at Pilot's hub in the screening room
4.00pm - 4.05pm
Welcome and small intro about why the event is taking place and about the MediaCamp concept. Real world and Virtual.

4.05pm - 4.25pm

Topic - Pilot's Playground

Guided tour of the Pilot Hub and how the arts are embracing and converging digital media. This session is for residents interested in SL as a 3D extensions of websites and SL potential for business and the arts.

TP to MediaCity
4.30pm - 4.50pm
Topic - Advances and the future of Second Life

Neil Neilsen from MediaCity in Second Life (Neil Riley, Macanix UK) presents an update of Second Life's potential and recent digital media in world advances. The opportunities arising and how they can and are being embraced.

4.50pm - 5.15pm
Topic - Reporting a Second Life

The buzz of life in virtual worlds. Nazz Lane reading excerpt from his writings with a short intro about his SL journalism.

5.15pm - 5.30pm

Q & A for invited guests

Hope there is a happy ending!