a tough conference

internet - Cnbloggercon closes among cheers

I got only a few updates on the cnbloggercon that ended earlier today in Shanghai. Because of the time difference and other activities here I could only catch the tail of each day, so very hard to have a good idea, since I mainly have some pictures at this stage.
On observations from afar. I found the number of women bloggers fairly low, considering that they maintain at least half of the weblogs. (I'm guessing now, but that is about an estimate I remember.) And for some of them it seemed not interesting enough to keep awake, although that might have had other reasons too.
Further, some of the really hot issues between Chinese webloggers seem to have been avoided. Maybe that is a good idea for such a first-timer, but although some bokee-people were around, the different opinions about what weblogs are caused a few confused reactions I saw at one of the IRC-channels. Anyway, very sorry I missed it, both in person and virtually. Will try to be there next year. Waiting for more reports.

Update: Brocco Li gives a good assesment of the different groups he noted in the crowd.

Big business was not at the conference, but startups from both sides of the Pacific were represented: I saw representatives of VC firms, Feedster, Blogbus, Seehaha, Toodou, a consultant friend, and I'm sure there were more. The conference was really low key, so there was little chance to advertise products. I'm thinking the weekend was more about schmoozing and establishing relationships during the off-hours. Several business representatives had places on discussion panels.