Comments on: Does Going To A Conference Make You A “Real” Blogger?

By: Off The Cuff: Conferences and stuff | WinExtra

Off The Cuff: Conferences and stuff | WinExtra — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:24:28 +0000

[...] Reference Posts:Mathew Ingram – What’s in a name? In Web 2.0, confusionTony Hung (DJI) – Does Going To A Conference Make You A “Real” Blogger? [...]

By: Webomatica

Webomatica — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 06:23:36 +0000

Gee, I sure hope not. I again am in the Bay Area and haven’t the time or $$$ to attend all these conferences (although – in retrospect I shoulda checked out WordCamp … next year perhaps).

Actually, for some strange reason many of the blogs I read are up in your neck of the woods… I’m starting to think all the *real* bloggers are in Canada.

By: Marshall Kirkpatrick

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:40:19 +0000

Going to conferences is great, but you do write a very good blog, Tony. That conversation we had by IM while I was on an Amtrak train coming home to Portland from Gnomedex was sure better than no personal connection at all! I would love to meet you face to face some time, whether your lack of conference attendance is a character flaw or not :) Just teasing.

By: Marshall Kirkpatrick

Marshall Kirkpatrick — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 05:39:05 +0000

By: Amy

Amy — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 04:32:54 +0000

I think the conference might not be worth the time and trouble. Make sure you enjoy what you are doing, and keep your original blogging purpose in mind–that’s all. Amy

By: Brent

Brent — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 04:13:25 +0000

Tony,
I’m in the same boat. Too much going on in my “real job” to get away for blogging conferences. Bloggers like you and I have to keep up by focusing on our readers and the content that keeps those readers coming back. Keep that up as you have thus far and you will continue your blogging success!

Brent

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 04:13:03 +0000

going to these things can help further your blog’s prospects as real life interactions can add different elements to networking and relationships – however I think that conferences can also be quite a big distraction and take you away from the core tasks of writing a successful blog.

I would get to 1-2 conferences a year maximum and have found them to be valuable – but the distance I needed to travel and the time needed to prepare and recover from them meant that I was effectively away from my blogs for 2-4 weeks just to attend them. I sometimes wonder what impact I could have had if I’d put those weeks into some other activity to grow and improve my blog.

I guess one needs to weigh up the pros and cons.

The other thing I’d add is that it would depend upon the conference and the topic of your blog. For you as a new media blogger there would be more reason to attend TC40 (as there might be for me) but for 99.9% of bloggers out there it’d be a complete waste of time because their blogs don’t touch on the topics covered in the conference. Them not attending definitely doesn’t make them any less of a blogger for not being there.

Sorry – just a few random and jumbled thoughts :-)