Julien Smith introduce you to one of Quebec’s finest delicacies : Poutine! But before, he’ll show you the facility where PodCamp Montreal 2008 will be held at, and the bar for our Friday night party…

Due to the high demand, we are closing registration at 383, which includes the latest registrants. Anyone on this list who is not attending, please let us know so we can open your spot to someone who will be joining us.

Internally, as a podcamp organising committee, we sat down to discuss the possibility of following this set of “rules” in order to present PodCamp Montréal as a “next generation” event. So hat tip to Solaris, here are the 5 signs an event is 1.0 and how PodCamp Montreal intends to address each one.

You know your event is 1.0 when…

1. You have a web page but not a blog

This one is self explanatory. You are reading this from our blog now, aren’t you?

What makes a blog much more interesting than a static webpage? It’s interactive! You can react to pretty much everything by using the comment form below. And this isn’t a one way street : we’ll respond to your comment as soon as possible, as we already have done with other blogposts.

Expect to see more content, like conferences descriptions and related stuff about the event starting this week…

2. You don’t have a Twitter account for the event

Not only are we on Twitter, but we are on Identica as well, a open-source alternative to Twitter, which, incidentally, is much faster. Follow us @podcampmontreal to get the latest details about the event (we’ll obviously chat more on the actual weekend of the event). You can also know what others are think of PodCamp Montreal by tracking the #pcmtl tag. This tag, suggested by one of our participants, helps stream the conversation on both platforms.

For those of you who don’t know what microblogging is about, here’s a cool video : Twitter in Plain English.

3. You are not webcasting

Laurent Maisonnave and his colleague Christian Aubry will be streaming some of PodCamp Montreal’s sessions online. Unfortunately, we can’t webcast every session, but we’ll do what we can to ensure that people who couldn’t make it to Montreal this year get as much out of PodCamp Montreal as possible, without actually being there.

4. You did not create a community beforehand

Fortunately, the PodCamp movement helps us a big way! PodCamps have been happening all over the world for the past few years. The result is a strong community that believes in its formula.

PodCamp Montreal’s volunteer organizing committee includes people well connected with the blogging and podcasting community in Canada, and internationally as well.

5. You are having an impact on the environment

Our idea was to minimize the paper usage by not producing flyers to promote the event; we’ll probably think of something for the schedule as well, make it smaller, or to encourage people to go straight on our blog with their iPhones, iPod or Blackberry.

In conclusion, as you come to Montreal to share knowledge, you are what will make PodCamp Montreal a Web 2.0 event. The quality of the information you exchange with one another and with us will be the 2.0 reward you will offer to the PodCamp Montreal organising committee.

A few requests :

• Please register using your full name. Pseudonyms may be charming, but they’re also problematic.
• Ensure you confirm your registration by responding to the email.
• Check your spam filters to ensure our confirmation request aren’t slipping through the cracks.

If you thought you had registered, but your name does not appear on the list, please email us at registration@podcampmontreal.org and we’ll get you sorted.

A week ago, we opened registration. Since then, a good number of interesting speaking proposals have been submitted. Here’s a preliminary list of what you can expect to see and hear at PodCamp Montreal 2008 :

Other potential speakers will be announced later on, as topics are confirmed. Maybe we can expect more proposal related to podcasting?

Video promos

Are you one of this year’s PodCamp Montreal speakers? If so, we want to hear from you… literally. Post a 2 minute video promoting your session on YouTube and/or Dailymotion with the words PodCamp Montreal 2008 in the title and join the tag pcmtl with the video. Send us a link and we’ll post it in our blog. A good way to get some pre-conference buzz going.

Photo Credit : Pierre Phaneuf on Flickr

To help visitors to our fair city, we’re going to start sharing more information about Montreal…

I think a good place to start is this  great video from Tourisme Montreal.

You might be greeted by a french website… The strange thing is you have to know that “Langue” means language, so just hit the “LANGUE” link on the top right of the screen, and it will let you switch the site to english. (if you knew that Langue = Language, then there’s no need to click, but I digress )

Then click play in the center of the screen, and enjoy the great video that shows Montreal’s different districts.

37 days until Podcamp!