What I Learned From WordCamp Denver

While I didn’t attend the event, I kept a close eye on Twitter for the WordCamp Denver hashtag as well as tuned into the BitWireLive video stream that was produced by Dave Moyer. As it turns out, WiFi connectivity during the event was not the greatest, especially during the sessions that took place before lunch. I received a tweet from one of the event organizers who told me one of the WAP devices was failing under heavy load which was the cause of most of the network issues. However, they must have fixed it because after lunch, the volume of Tweets really picked up. Here are my cliff notes of what I learned during the event in no particular order.

One of the messages I saw come across Twitter was this:

afhill: coming in a few weeks: buddypress for a single wordpress install (don’t need wordpressMU)! #wordcampdenver

This message was made by someone attending the BuddyPress session. If this is indeed true, this is exciting news. I feel that WordPress MU is actually a barrier to entry with regards to mass adoption of BuddyPress.

*UPDATE* Community member andrea_r published this link in the Tavern forum with more information related to this quote.

I did not get to witness any sessions but Jane Wells did stop by the BitWireLive desk for an interview with Dave Moyer and Lorelle Van Fossen. I was very intrigued by what Jane had to say. It looks like she is the one responsible for reshaping the way in which development for WordPress is heading in terms of user driven development. I heard her mention that they do indeed want to rework the Ideas forum which if you’ve been following this blog will know I’ve been harping on this fact. She also said that at some point in the future, Trac will be expanded to cover more areas for which end users can help contribute to WordPress such as graphics design, low priority bugs, etc. She also mentioned that they are working on revamping the Widget Management area and at this point, they may put the foundation in place in 2.8 and then finish it off in WordPress 2.9.

One of the sessions at WordCamp Denver dealt with Licensing. Most likely the topic of the GPL and other ways of licensing works as they relate to WordPress and the first question someone asked during this session involved selling premium themes and plugins. While I was not able to figure out the complete answer to this question, I found a few tweets which mentioned Matt continued with his stance that the code is not valuable, but the services built around the code is what provides the value. Personally, I can’t wait to watch this session if it ends up on WordPress.TV.

It was hard for me to hear Micah of Lijit during his interview with BitWire Live but from what I could tell based on his interview and their interview with Tara Anderson of Lijit, that company is working on great things. Especially their WordPress plugin.

Last but not least, Dave Moyer did a presentation on WordPress and podcasting. Judging by the tweets during his sessions, he was a smashing hit. Although there were quite a few people who kept discussing his age. I’m not sure what age has to do with the information he provided but it looks like his session was right up there in terms of Ben Huh’s icanhascheezeburger presentation as well as Matt’s keynote.

Conclusions

That is what I got out of the event without even attending. Certainly one lesson to be learned if you are hosting your own WordCamp is to make sure that the place has adequate bandwidth for the approximate number of people attending. I’ve been told that there will be quite a few videos from WordCamp Denver uploaded to WordPress.TV once they have been edited. Special thanks to Dave Moyer and the BitWire team for providing the live video stream coverage of the event.