Mashup Camp is my first “unconference” experience – it’s been quite interesting. The basic theory is to get a bunch of people together and let them geek out in loose groups on various topics, with little to no structure. It worked surprisingly well – Steve was impressed as well.

The sessions I attended today:

• API Best Practices – we had already planned to use REST APIs for FeedLounge, a decision reinforced by many strong opinions.
• Identity Management – this was very interesting (perhaps the wiki page will be updated later), OpenID and LID seem quite intriguing. I especially like the fact that Six Apart already has a big OpenID implementation in the wild. WordPress should strongly consider supporting OpenID.
• Creative Commons – As I’d already been told, Larry Lessig is an excellent public speaker.
• Search Mashups – this was fairly free form, but there were some interesting ideas discussed.

My attendance was documented by others.

Funny side note: we had a little trouble finding the hotel we’re staying due to an (apparently) ambiguous address given to Google Maps. It turns out that the hotel is blocks from my old apartment and about a mile from my old condo. Yes, I drove past it every day for 4 years – and had no idea it was there.

This post is part of the project: FeedLounge. View the project timeline for more context on this post.