Chinese blogger con - day 1 winds down

Thanks to blogger Angelo Embuldeniya who took my English IRC notes from the Chinese-language sessions, combined them with screen grabs from the live video webcasts, and put it all on a special blog. I will write about the whole thing more extensively when it's all over, since I'm running off to a blogger dinner. A few takeaways:

• Isaac Mao, the mastermind of this conference, is even more amazing than I already knew he was. Key quote (among many): "the combination of all these small voices will make our society smarter."
• There is interest in doing more to communicate with the outside world. Language is a barrier, but people are open to distributed volunteer translation networks and other means of getting Chinese voices heard outside of the Chinese language blogosphere.
• Censorship is an issue. But people are determined to maximize what they can do within the realities of the system, and to push the boundaries as much as possible.
• Multimedia non-text blogging: video, podcasting, and mobile blogging - are taking off fast. The Chinese may quickly to lead the world when it comes to innovations in audio-visual social media.
• Some Chinese educators see blogging as an exciting way to reform China's rigid educational system based on rote-learning. Because blogs are all about individual inquiry, exploration and growth.  A number of government officials in the education sector are blogging.

Comments

[Critt]

Rebecca, I watched about 20 minutes of live webcast. It was awesome. I didn't understand what was being said, but certainly understood the receptive participants' response. What was really cool was someone changed the camera angle to show the mingling during the break--vibrant and animated. It was like being in Pound 201.

Great work. Thanks.

[Critt]

Webcast showed podium and piece of screen (too much space to the left of podium).

It would be fantastic if this is what we could see:

From this angle.

`critt

[jack]

Popped over and read about this conference and wanted to say what a facinating thing this is. I can't believe this is happening in China. Very encouraging and exciting!