Well, That Was Fun... Sort Of

As planned, I watched the NBN Jewish Bloggers Conference via webcam yesterday. The first hour or so was fun. Lots of non-Israeli bloggers were online, and we all chatted excitedly with each other for a while. Baila, who is obviously a woman of great taste and style, said hi to me on camera during her interview, which made me, in Ezzie's words, "gush" (and I am so not a gusher). I plan to return the favor when I win my first Pulitzer.

But then things got a little off-track. Bibi Netanyahu showed up, which was cool, and interrupted the panel discussion, which was not. (Turns out Bibi's a blogger- who woulda thunk it?) He spoke nicely for the first few minutes, but then began taking questions and went on and on and on... (the chatroom was full of jokes about all the things we were able to accomplish during the endless minutes while he kept on talking). I lost interest and drifted away for a while, but happily came back in time to hear David from Treppenwitz speak briefly about how to grow your blog (IMO, his presentation was the best of the evening). Heshy and Benji both added some much needed humor to the event, and Gila let loose with an honest response to the speakers who kept saying that bloggers have an obligation to promote Aliyah ("I am doing this for me").

All in all, it was fun to "see" and "chat with" other bloggers, and some of the speakers were interesting. I would have liked to hear from the bloggers more and from the Israeli government less. I would also have liked to "meet" more of the audience members. Hopefully next year...