As day 1 of WordCamp Dallas 2009 wraps up, I thought I’d put a quick recap of the event.

Speakers: John P., Tony Cecala, Cali Lewis, Liz Straus, Lorelle VanFossen, Matthew McGarity, Mark Hopkins, Jonathan Bailey, Chris Silver Smith, Dave Curlee, Scott Kingsley Clark

Venue: University of Texas at Dallas (UTD)

Summary

The long awaited for WordCamp Dallas 2009 (Day 1) met expectations in terms of the great event that this is supposed to be. One of my favorite presentations was Cali Lewis of GeekBrief.TV .  She kept it real by providing tips for building community.  Her advise really touched upon some of the key reasons I see bloggers fail.  A couple of points that stuck out were “blog for your community and not yourself” and “strive friends/community not fans”.   From there the topics covered included readability, multimedia, legal content, monetization, and a variety of technical topics.  Speaker accessibility ranging from hallway conversations to ASL Signing of all presenters was great.  $30 included a t-shirt and lunch.

Being an active member of both the Dallas SEO/SEM and Social Media marketing communities, one thing I found amazing was the number of new faces I met and the lack of people from my normal circles that I met at the event.  This was actually a great thing as I met new people in the industry.  Of course, having TweetDeck open during the event was a must!  The amount of Twittering was amazing.

My rational for this post was to simply provide additional exposure to the event as WordPress is a crucial platform in the world of blog based social media.  If you are interested in the content or the speakers, there was video captured, plenty of tweets (#wcdfw09), and content from the event available.

This week a friend and business partner, Jerod Morris, wrote a sports blog post with the goal of dispelling rumors that major league baseball player Raul Ibanez was using performance enhancing drugs. The post was thoroughly researched and well written. It was also very fair and did not accuse the player of using steroids. The post simply highlighted the fact that the state of Major League Baseball created an environment where anyone who turned in numbers like the 37 year old Ibanez did was fair game for speculation. That is where social media kicks in.

Shortly after the post was made, a blogger named Hugging Harold Reynolds tweeted about the post in his widely followed Twitter account. This caused the inbox of John Gonzalez, a staff columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, to blow up before he finished his morning coffee. In turn, he wrote a column accusing the Midwest Sports Fans blog post of irresponsibility and consequently drew attention to the topic of Ibanez and Performance Enhancing Drugs. The blogosphere lit up as did Twitter. Ibanez himself participated in a rebuttal in the same Philly newspaper calling Jerod an “idiot”. The next thing you know, ESPN gives Jerod a call asking for him to participate in a panel debate on blogging versus traditional media.

In this segment, Ken Rosenthal and John Gonzalez pretty much gang up on Jerod in defense of traditional media. John Gonzalez, who has been in communication with Jerod, was respectful during the Interview and I applaud the way he backed his position while being respectful of Jerod’s. Ken Rosenthal couldn’t get over the fact that this wasn’t 10 years ago and that fans and bloggers had a voice. He was actually very disrespectful to bloggers. Has anyone seen Ken Rosenthal’s blog? Since he was a flat out jerk to Jerod on air, I’ll jump in and be a jerk to him in our world. . .the blogosphere. Ken Rosenthal might be the big to do MLB guy for Fox Sports, but has anyone seen his blog? ‘ll give you my score card:

I wrote this post to give Jerod credit for writing a quality post, having a great rapport with his peers in the sports blogosphere, and for participating in the ESPN interview today. I also think that ESPN did a great job of giving him a fair platform for explaining his position.

In conclusion, social media is shaking up traditional media. Any story is one tweet away from mushroom affect. I just wish traditional media would partner with the blogosphere instead of taking a polarizing approach. It would be better for the media, better for the blogosphere, and better for sports fans.

Jerod, congratulations on some well deserved exposure and coverage for Midwest Sports Fans. You’ve worked hard at creating a quality blog!

As I just posted a detailed article yesterday on how the Rip-Off Report hides behind Section 230 of The Communications Decency Act, The Associated Press broke a story related to a law suit filed by Tony La Russa.  La Russa is looking to hold Twitter accountable for content posted by someone pretending to be him.  Unlike The Rip-Off Report, Twitter has pulled the content.  Still, as the rulings have come down in related cases, Twitter has safe harbor as a host of content.  Unless one of their employees put up that La Russa account and wrote the tweets, they are home free.  Sorry Tony but I do hope that your suit affords you the ability to get IP addresses and other information that will help you to pin down the person who is responsible.  Social Media needs to stay clean!!

*Disclaimer – I’m not an attorney.  I don’t even play one on TV.  If you have questions regarding The Communications Decency Act, you should contact an attorney experienced in it.