Last year, travel consultant Greta Lint tuned me in to an event that took smallwander.com in a new direction. I was going to say it changed my life, but I’m not that dramatic.
Converge South is a free conference about using the ever-emerging technologies of the web to communicate with your fellow beings. Once known simply as a blogging conference, it has grown to include sessions on shooting video for online publication, creating podcasts, increasing online traffic, and the like.
The conference takes place in Greensboro, NC once a year. This year’s is happening this week, on Thursday and Friday, October 16 and 17.
At last year’s conference, I was a new web entrepreneur who had not entered into the universe of blogging. After attending the sessions and meeting with friendly participants, I happily hopped on the boat and began learning the vocabulary. The following definitions are abridged from Wikipedia:
Blog: A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. (You are reading a blog right now.)
Podcast: A podcast is a series of digital-media files, which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers. The term podcast, like broadcast, can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.
RSS: Really Simple Syndication. An RSS document (which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”) contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays.
Social media: Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories, and understandings.
Social networking: A social network service uses software to build online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.
Search Engine: Search engines provide an interface to a group of items that enables users to specify criteria about an item of interest and have the engine find the matching items.
Search Engine Optimization: Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords.
Web 2.0: Web 2.0 is a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users.
Wiki: A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.
With these new “social media” web tools, smallwander.com is better able to collaborate with both town representatives and travelers. We are better able to share information and learn from each other instead of relying on the staid, brochure-like world that existed previously on the web.
A couple months after last year’s conference, I had our two smallwander blogs up-and-running, Small Towns, which has information to help historic and charming towns to promote themselves, and Smallwanderer, a blog for travelers who are looking for authentic small town experiences. In fact, our main website is also evolving into a more blog-oriented platform. We’ll have an announcement on our new web design shortly.
I also learned a little bit about podcasting at the conference, and we launched our first podcast also in May.
If you are in driving distance to Greensboro, NC, I strongly encourage you to attend. However, if you can’t make it, we are having a post conference call on Monday, October 27, at 10 am. Dial-in details are below. Smallwander.com hosts free conference calls related to small town tourism and economic development on the last Monday of every month at 10 am.
EVENT: Converge South Wrap-Up
DATE & TIME: Monday, October 27th at 10:00am Eastern
FORMAT: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast — it’s your choice)
TO ATTEND THIS EVENT, CLICK THIS LINK NOW…
http://instantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=4663605
This month’s smallwander.com conference call on August 31 will focus on small towns’ efforts to fund train depots. Many towns have received approval to get new rail stops. Access to trains will help commuters as well as long-distance travelers, as people begin to finally look harder at alternatives to automobiles.
