It’s funny after having be interested in tech for so long, this is the first time I’m attending a remote conference. But I’ll try to see what I can get out of if. Can I learn something and be a part of a conference that’s halfway around the world by making use of new media technology? What are the tools that can make the experience worthwhile? I belive even the organizers are still experimenting what are the right tools to use.

In the mean time, I will be liveblogging and updating this post. So just stay tuned or refresh this post:

(Please excuse me if this post looks messy. I just kept adding links to the end of the post…)

Event Website: http://www.nustart.sg/hej2007/

Video Cast: http://dev.podesk.com/hej2007.php

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Live Blogging: (This is the most comprehensive! [with pics added live] –>)

http://citizenmediawatch.com/index.php/2007/04/21/hej-2007-just-started/

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Jaiku Channel: http://jaiku.com/channel/hej

Cool Jaiku widget: http://term.ie/data/hej.html

OneLinr Channel: http://onelinr.com/channels/hej (this app really rocks man. so simple, can insert images. kickass simple setup. everyone should use it for every and anything. create a backchannel for your office, your friends, your class…)

All the links to Live Blogging: http://www.nustart.sg/hej2007/live/

Video: http://www.jaycut.se/

Flickr: http://www.jaycut.se/

Interesting Links from the participants:

• A social network for bikes: http://velospace.org/
• Karaoke: http://testsida.singiluli.com
• Blogsearch + Blog to Newspaper service: http://twingly.se/
• Cool screensaver: http://twingly.se/ScreenSaver.aspx
• http://whatsnext.se/ Interview with Jaycut
• Kudos to Hej team on What’sNext.se
• “FAI”:http://www.informatik.uni-koeln.de/fai
• MetroTeknik mentions Hej
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_programming_language
• http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/titles/jaerlang/
• http://eric.wahlforss.com/2007/04/21/hej/
• www.erlyweb.org
• www.kreditor.se (fast growing swedish invoicing app)
• www.goodold.se

Watch the Jaiku Conversation Live: http://term.ie/data/hej.html

Services by the speakers:

• Eric Wahlforss: Onelinr (Super Cool, very easy to use)
• Henrik Torstensson: Stardoll (Only 7% male!)
• Andreas Ehn – Spotify (<– Reputedly the Joost of streaming music. Beta to be out next week. Check back. Hardcore devs behind it. Philosophy is to solve the hard problems. They have their own database even. Based in Luxembourg. Secret investors. With guts and cash.)
• [Lunch Break]
• Joe Armstrong
• Bjorn Jeffrey (backchannel says he rocks as a speaker. must watch the video. “björn is making spectacular sense”) (should be available here: http://dev.podesk.com/hej2007.php )
• Nikolaj had something on. Couldn’t attend.
• Andy Smith – http://jaiku.com/ (the twitter competitor)
• Nikolaj is speaking – www.polarrose.com and co-organizer of www.reboot.dk!

My Thoughts (progressive):

• Hej 07 is super cool.
• Live blogging is super cool.
• I can do my own things and still get a gist of what is going on in during the conference although it’s in Sweden.
• Backchannels is a must have
• Wished the rest of the e27 guys weren’t having exams and we could all truly experience what it is like to have a conference and involve participants from all over the world.
• E27 has to learn from Hej 07!
• I’m not doing live-blogging. It’s more like I’m doing 2nd degree live blogging…
• 2nd dregree live blogging is like interpolation. trying to understand what is going on requires interpolation of what people are saying through the various backchannels, pictures and video feeds to get a sense of what is going on.
• How I miss Stockholm and its beautiful gardens!
• Nusea, what happened to your events?!?
• Jaiku is beta testing a cool new mobile client for symbian. watch out for that.
• spotted on backchannel: “Nokia N95 wt Flickr+Jaiku = human 2.0″
• spotted on backchannel: “We call it Screamware” (possibly referring to Jaiku and Twitter)
• spotted on backchannel: “Can we order Human 2.0 with predefined intelligence and length?”
• come to think of it. actually the technologies i’m using to attend this conference over the net is quite old. could have used IRC. blogs have been around for a zillion years. streaming video and pictures have been around for a long time too. so what is the difference? I guess the difference really lies in the way it is much easier to use and much more accessible. it’s a hassle to log into IRC. but to use onelinr is easy peasy. flickr is just photos but the tagging feature makes it possible to aggregate photos from many people who are uploading simultaneously. blogging is old but desktop blogging tools, ajax and xml-rpc makes it easy to continuously update the post.
• talk in the backchannel that the dodgeball guys quit google. does google stifle innovation?
• ending accolades: “wow the singaporian guys TOTALLY ROCK”
• “you NUS guys rock”

Pictures: (Courtesy of CitizenMediaWatch)

Erik Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung (above)

Henrik Torstensson and lotsa stickers on the lappy. More than mine!(above)

Andreas Ehn and nice banner. (above)

Just before lunch break. Almost everyone has a lappy! I see lots of coffee. Can hardly spot any Singaporeans (good! (this means they’ve reached out to the community well)). Nice setup. Seats, tables and plenty of power for everyone. (above)

Joe Armstrong speaking about Erlang (above)

Bjorn Jeffrey speaking (above)

Andy Smith from Jaiku speaking (above)