Top 10 Events for Bloggers

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Blogging can be a lonely business. And if online blogger communities don't satisfy you desire to mingle, this is a list of the top 10 events in the real world where you can participate in, meet with fellow bloggers, and share experiences.

BarCamp

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BarCamp is a different kind of conference where bloggers, new media enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs gather to learn and discuss various aspects of the new media among themselves. There are no set agenda or pre-decided speakers and everyone is free to join.

The first BarCamp was organized in California by a group of 6 people as a weekend conference. The camp was an instant hit and since then there have been more than 150 camps organized across the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia with more than 10,000 people attending. The second anniversary of the BarCamp was celebrated in August this year.

BlogHer Conference

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BlogHer Conference is an annual conference for women bloggers being organised since 2005 by BlogHer, an online community of exclusively working for the fairer gender with a membership base of around 13,000 bloggers. This year's event was organized for two days in June at Chicago with over 800 bloggers participating. Discussions and sessions were on providing resources and tips to women bloggers. The 2008 event is underway though the venue has not been decided as yet.

BlogHer also organized the first BlogHer Business Conference in 2007. Next year, this is scheduled to be held in April at New York. BlogHer is also starting a new event in 2008, the BlogHer Reach Out Tour, that will tour across six US cities.

BlogTalk

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BlogTalk is an European conference for bloggers, developers, and researchers of the social media. The first BlogTalk was organized in 2003, and since then the conference have been organized in 2004, 2005, and 2006. The next BlogTalk event is coming up at Ireland in March 2008.

BlogTalk 2008 will be a 2-day event of meetings, presentations, and exchanges of research. This will include topics on technological developments in social software, new blog and wiki applications, and social software in politics and journalism, among others.

Blog World & New Media Expo

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Blog World & New Media Expo is perhaps the most-hyped event that is going round the blogosphere these days. The event is a two day affair coming in November at Las Vegas. Positioned as the world's largest blogging and new media conference, the event will have plenty of seminars and panels on blogging, video blogging, podcasting, internet radio, TV broadcasting, and social networking to choose from. Some well known web experts and bloggers are expected out there.

Gnomedex

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Gnomedex is another high profile blogging and web 2.0 event. The seventh Gnomedex was organized in August this year in Seattle. The conference was attended by hundreds of bloggers, podcasters, and web experts. Popular blogger Chris Pirillo was the main host for the event and Guy Kawasaki was one of the eminent speakers.

One interesting part of the conference was the UnGnomeCamp, the unofficial post-conference gathering for those who couldn't make it to the Gnomedex.

International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media

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International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media is the new avatar of the popular workshops on the Weblogging Ecosystem, started this year with over 145 people attending the event. The 2008 event is schedule in March 2008 at Seattle. The conference is primarily for researchers from different fields like computer science, linguistics, psychology, statistics, sociology, multimedia, and semantic web technologies for discussion on blogs and the social media.

New Media Expo

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New Media Expo is an annual event for digital media creators, podcasters, and content developers. The 2007 event was held in California with more than 65 companies participating. The next expo is scheduled to be held in August 2008 at Las Vegas. As part of the expo, there will be a conference with sessions on podcasting beginners, attracting & growing audience, monetization & business podcasting, advanced audio & video creation, and new media strategies.

Podcamp

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PodCamp is another barcamp style conference for podcaster and listeners, bloggers, and people interested in the new media. Since the first PodCamp in 2006 at Boston, there have been 21 PodCamps organized across the US, Europe, and South Africa.

Postiecon

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PostieCon is a popular and free conference organized by PayPerPost Inc. for bloggers to discuss blog marketing, monetization, and building traffic. The upcoming Postiecon event starts on November 9 with an advertisers summit followed by a day-long conference and a distribution of the Blogger's Choice Awards on the following day.

SobCon

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Sobcon is another conference for bloggers on publishing, design and branding, tools, analytics, social networking, marketing, and other subjects of interest to bloggers. The 2007 event has been concluded with 15 speakers and 250 bloggers participating.