Attempting to live-blog as much of today as possible. Following #fowa on Twitter and keeping your eyes peeled on the Carsonified feed of HD video, transcripts and audio of all todays talks is also suggested.

10.15 | Kevin Rose (digg) - The Future of News
Kevin talking more on the future of Digg rather than the future of news - but he’s probably of the opinion that they’re one and the same. Niche categories through tagging and metadata rather than the regular category “buckets”. Still wants to keep the core elements of the current Digg, eg. the homepage - but add more customisation and tailored content based on your digging habits - step one is Upcoming & the recommendation engine. Wants to promote a conversation between users with similar interests. Better integration with not only other social networking tools, but publishers - opening up the API is core to this. Also international versions & localisation. Diggable ads vaguely suggested.

10.50 | Edwin Aoki (AOL) - Web Apps Are Dead
Mostly nonsense. Apparently consumers don’t give a shit about validation or standards - but you’ll find they do when the apps or services they’re trying to use don’t work the way they want them to. Also, developers aren’t interested in money - which might be true if you’re banking a regular paycheque from AOL.

— Break —
Stole some name-badge stickers & complimentary 10p mix ups and grabbed a coffee. Anton Mannering has arrived, upping the numbers of the Irish contingent.

11.45 | Blaine Cook (ex-Twitter) & Joe Stump (Digg) - Languages Don’t Scale
Blane and Joe making the case that all languages, regardless of how passionately coding-fanboys might tell you, don’t scale - it’s the hardware architecture when developers need to focus. Pick languages that keep programmers happy, any advantages or disadvantages in languages can be leveled with efficient hardware choices. Build contingency plans by spreading the load.

12.30 | Kevin Marks - The Future of Enterprise Web Apps Mostly ignored this to clean up the liveblog. Points++ for including a Douglas Adams quote, but thats about all I took in. Time for lunch! (updates from the afternoon sessions after the jump!) Continue reading »

Given my tendency to flee for London at any available opportunity, you’ll not be surprised to learn I’m currently over for Future of Web Apps - I’m actually drafting this prior to leaving for registration and a dander around the expo floor before the conference itself starts tomorrow. Not sure where I or the other few bemuzed guys who showed up today got that impression, expo & conference starts tomorrow.

I’m particularly looking forward - as I imagine most people are - to hearing the keynote speakers Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) and Kevin Rose (founder of Digg) - as well as the talks on entrepreneurship, cloud computing, interface design, technology & psychology, community development and social networking. So much as I’m typically unreliable at blogging when I say I will, I’ll attempt to write up my thoughts over the duration - all the same my Twitter should be pretty reliable source of personal commentary.

I’ve also set somewhat of a challenge for myself while I’m here. I’m attempting, before I leave London, to clear my current backlog of work - which currently consists of three half finished client projects and two new client sites - as well as drafting a backlog of blog entries for goodonpaper, making repairs to Mucho Danke and preparing for the relaunch, sending the TwoStep website live & having lineups confirmed as far as February and making headway on a few other personal projects. It’s a mammoth task on paper - but I’m here alone for the guts of a week (with the conference, after-parties and Diggnation taking up around two days) - and I think it can be done. The past couple of months have demanded a lot of my time sorting out problems that got in the way of my work. Free of those distractions here in London, I’m determined to catch up before I hop on a plane home Saturday evening.

This month has been nothing less than a nightmare. Between what has now escalated into a legal battle with our estate agent, broken laptops and lack of an internet connection for over a fortnight, I’ve been living almost day-to-day drenched in frustration and rage. Which, needless to say, has detained most sane daily activities - the most unfortunate of which was my Photo 366 project.

What to do now though? Rightly strike September off as a month not worth remembering and continue with optimism again tomorrow, or give up entirely knowing the gaping void of September missing from the “final” project will likely urk me too much to feel entirely accomplished?

For anyone who hasn’t been following the Digital Media Island blog, TechLudd has relocated to the originally proposed venue - Ten Square Hotel on Donegall Square South. So, needless to say, don’t go turning up to The Stiff Kitten.

You can also now register your attendance on the website as well as what you’re interested in talking to other people about. I don’t think I’ve ever publicly invited anyone to come speak to myself personally, but if you fancy a chat about web design, unconferencing or local music I’ll be more than happy to let you buy me a pint!

TechLudd Belfast
Wednesday 24th September, 7.30pm
Ten Square Hotel, 10 Donegall Sq South, Belfast (map)

Music promotion is something I spend very little time discussing on goodonpaper, but it’s actually something I’ve been doing longer than I’ve been freelancing.

Over 4 years ago I started a DJ night in Auntie Annies named Sputnik - which actually originated as a “launch party” for this blog. Over time, Sputnik evolved into a live music night - with a further 4 shows taking place before I became involved in other projects and it fell by the wayside. The idea always was to have five shows (paralleling the five Sputnik missions) before killing the club off regardless of its success - presumably either quelling a short lived desire to do some local promotion, or confirm it was something I was interested in pursuing more permanently. The fifth show never happened, but I have every intention of reviving Sputnik to complete the series before terminating it completely.

A year ago - after abusing a friendship with local promotion legend and all-round bastard Joe Dougan - I was asked to take care of TwoStep as he moved on to run events at the Stiff Kitten and launch Belsonic. TwoStep, in local music terms, is one of the bigger live music clubnights in Belfast - with consistently solid lineups showcasing the best in local music in a great venue - with decent money, rider and facilities for the bands.

The club will be three years old this month, which will also mark a year of me being involved in the promotion, booking and eventual takeover of TwoStep. To mark the occasion, as well as curating arguably one of the best bills the club has ever seen, we’re getting a massive cake made up and giving out “party bags” with limited edition Panama Kings and Colenso Parade CDs and all kinds of other goodies to the first 100 people through the door.

Panama Kings
Cashier No. 9
& Colenso Parade

Thursday 18th September
The Limelight, Belfast - 9.30pm - £5
http://twostepclub.com

And yes, my graphic designer thought it was hilarious to put LittleTapeDude in the vulnerable position of being in his “birthday suit” and having his wang out on the poster.