Blog-Talk Downunder Draws Near

Blogtalk Downunder is getting close now – and some of the papers being presented are truly mouth watering stuff.

Papers released so far include:

1. Chris Chesher – Paper – Blogs and the crisis of authorship
2. ZedTycho.com: Kevin Leversee, Barry Steele, Scott Farrell & Mark Neely – Panel – Desire Lines, Memes & the Blogosphere
3. Trevor Cook – Paper – Up against reality: Blogging and the cost of content
4. Senator Andrew Bartlett – Presentation – Blogs and Politics in Australia and globally
5. Zenon Chaczko, Venkatesh Mahadevan & Emil Wajs-Chaczko – Paper – Blogging as an Effective Tool in Teaching and Learning Software Systems Development
6. Robert Ackland – Paper – Mapping the U.S. Political Blogosphere: Are Conservative Bloggers More Prominent?
7. Glen Fuller – Paper – The eventual potential of Blogs
8. James Farmer – Paper – Centred Communication: Weblogs and aggregation in the organisation
9. Gavin Sade – Paper – Weblogs as Open Constructive Learning Environments
10. Carol Cooper & Lyn Boddington – Paper – Assessment by blog: Ethical case studies assessment for an undergraduate business management class
11. TAN Yuh-Huann, TEO Eng-Hui, AW Wai-Lin Alice, LIM Wei-Ying – Paper – Portfolio Building in Chinese Language Learning Using Blogs

Overseas Speakers coming include:

The only downer of Blogtalk Downunder is some criticism that they seem to attracted about the cost of the event. It is costing $175 ($AU) which some believe is too high. James has responded here with how they worked out the pricing and some of the reasons its not cheaper. I personally think that $175 is a very reasonable price for a conference of this standard of venue, speakers, food etc.

Having said this – most Ausse bloggers are not blogging on a professional level and don’t have the backing of a business, university or other organization to bankroll their trip to Sydney. Perhaps this is where some of the criticism comes from. It is something of a catch 22.

I also have a little niggling feeling that perhaps Blogtalk is pitching itself at a higher (more intellectual or academic) level than where the Average Aussie Blogger is at. In reading the papers released so far I’m very impressed by the intelligent, well thought out presentations – but am left wondering how accessible they are for most bloggers in Australia. Whilst pitching at this level will lead to some wonderful sessions – it could also be narrowing the potential attendance.

I don’t have any real answers – just tossing thoughts around in the hope that something is productive.

I’ve personally decided that I can’t make it to Sydney for Blogtalk – I’d love to go but partly due to the finances and partly because we’ve got so much going on at the moment it doesn’t look feasible. I’ll be following on via the blogs of those attending however and no doubt will be posting plenty of wish I was there’ posts that week.

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Darren Rowse is the founder of ProBlogger.net, a blog about the many ways of adding an income stream to blogs.

Darren owns and writes a variety of blogs including Digital Photography Blog and Camera Phone
Zone. He is also a co-founder of the Breaking News Blog Collective.