Three days after departing Ontario I’m back in the social media jetstream. For a few days there I was in the eye of the storm. I met lots of people. I walked the floor of the exhibit hall many times, stopping at almost every booth to see what was happening.

A comparison to last year is inevitable. Many of the same people and companies were in attendance, although some took a different approach. Gary Leland of Podcast Pickle had a great booth last year complete with huge jars of pickles and a live recording setup. This year he opted for a Pickle Suit and a the Presidential Suite at the Marriott, which was occupied in ‘05 by PodTrac. Audible was back in a less prominent position on the Expo floor. Is anyone using Audible for podcasting?

PodTrac was back, throwing a party at the Pavillion near the Marriott pool with an impromtu performance by Brother Love. Last year Yahoo threw the big party near the pool. LibSyn was in attendance, sporting racing outfits and touting a new pro service. And just like last year, PodShow officially opted out of the event while some of Adam Curry’s minions attempted to lure podcasters away from the action to have a snooze by the pool at the Sheraton.

There was plenty of new blood in the house as well. Podango and Podcast Ready occupied very prominent spots near the entry to the exhibit hall. Podango held an “unconference” where people were constantly speaking. That’s one way to keep the conversation off of the holes in your service. Have other folks talking constantly. Podzinger showed up to show people about podcast search services.

New podcast services firms abounded offering various levels of service. Raw Voice came on strong with their Raw Voice Generator and Blubrry offerings. They had a friendly crew giving people demos at their booth. Podcast Spot was talking up some impressive server side features for video podcasts. SwitchPod is run by a seventeen year old and feels like the young newcomer to the space. The folks from Blip.tv made the trip from New York to promote their robust video blog/podcast services.

Hardware and software providers made the trip as well. Samson and Shure were showing off some great mics. TechSmith was showing off the Camtasia product and giving a glimpse of their new Screencast.com service. Rogue Amoeba was featuring some great audio software for Macs. FeedBurner had a couch and was giving away some t-shirts and helping people figure out the details of their RSS enhancement services.

I could go on but you get the picture. The Ontario Convention Center was transformed into a social media mecca. I can’t forget the podcasters though. The L.A. Podcasters, Orange County Podcasters and Red Bar Radio were doing live shows from the Expo floor. Keith and the Girl were doing shows from their hotel room. Dozens of other podcasters (including me) were doing shows in the hallways of the convention center and the hotels where they were staying.

This post could go on a lot longer so I’ll do my best to make the ending concise. I didn’t get to see or hear nearly everything that went on at the Expo but I think I have a good feel for how it turned out. I’ve got three conclusions based on what I experienced.

1. This movement is going forward at a nice pace. There were more podcasters, more vendors and more parties than last year. People have no problem investing their time and money to be at the center of independent media distribution. All good things for podcasting.
2. There are more tools and services available at the individual and commercial level to assist with all aspects of podcasting. Simpler is better for beginners but options help bring down costs and competition usually means better features. Not all of the new services and products are ready for primetime.
3. The long tail is alive and well. The exhibitors who showed up were generally selling to individuals and small businesses. There are people who have no problem selling to small frys and growing their products and services from the ground up. The same thing holds true on the podcasting end. Lots of relatively new podcasters showed up expecting to grow their shows.

So the tone was positive. There were lots of good contacts made by myself and others. I look forward to the 2007 Expo which just might be in Las Vegas.

[tags]Social Media, Podcasting, Podcast Expo[/tags]