6 Reasons why Live Blogging doesn’t Ruin SEO Conferences

I checked on my twtter this morning to find that Rae Hoffman and Lisa Barone were going at it tooth and nail over the concept of “Live Blogging” and it’s impact on conference attendance and value. If you aren’t clear, live bloggin is done by conference attendees who have their laptops going and are transcribing and interpretting the panel into a blog post. They also link up mentioned resources the speakers throw out.

Sugar Rae came out in full force against Live blogging conferences for several reasons.

I don’t think live bloggers should be allowed – why pay for a conf if you can get me transcribed for free? It also hurts quality of information – earlier days, speakers gave away more goods because it was shared with less people they give away less now, because you’re blogging it to the world… – Rae Hoffman

On the other hand, Lisa Barone wonders what the fuss is about, it’s just extended coverage.

What’s the difference between liveblogging and what WebProNews does? Press has always been allowed into shows – Lisa Barone

Having been to SES New York, I beleive that anyone worth their SEO salt will attend conferences regardless of live blogging because of the following reasons:

1. The face to face time and opportunity to participate in the Q&A portion of the conference
2. Live blogging is not totally accurate, as it is from one perspective and they may interpret something differently
3. Live bloggers don’t cover all panels
4. Live bloggers add the links to the resources and people mentioned by the speaker- As an attendee, my notes were sparse in comparison
5. I posted a blog article based off a SES panel a few days later…so since Bloggers post articles after hearing conferences, so should all bloggers be banned from conferences too?
6. You’re at the conference to speak to the public, if you didn’t want that info to go out into the world, then why would you go speak in the first place?

“You add value to the freeloaders at home – NOT paying conference attendees or speakers – Rae Hoffman

As a “freeloader” and as a conference attendee, I say Freedom of the press! The better the flow of information from cnferences to a broader audience, the more interested they are in getting into those conferences!

What do you say, free loaders? Should live blogging be banned or should the information flow?