SAVE THE DATE: The Second annual Brooklyn Blogfest for bloggers and non-bloggers alike will be held on Thursday May 10th at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. You won’t want to miss the new, improved Blogfest. More food and drink, a theme, a shorter presentation period, less hot, more bloggers, more fun. Here’s my report for the first one, a historical event. Note: I can see that what I wrote about the bloggers below is already OUTDATED.

The first Annual Brooklyn Blogfest was a real extravaganza and quite a success. I certainly
didn’t expect so many people to show up. I’d say there were over 100 people
there and the room was packed.

I liked the geekiness of it. There was a video projector, a slide
projector, numerous lap tops, a microphone, amps, speakers. Bloggers
brought PowerPoint applications to show photographs and speech support.
There was even Live blogging demonstrated by Daily Heights.

No Words Daily Pix was the AV guy: y’know the guy who plugs things in, adjusts, fixes, figures stuff out…

Just before the show, he even figured out how to get the Old Stone
House’s wireless working. "I used to work for Cisco, you know."

Everyone wore name tags: Hello My Name Is_____. That helped. Non-bloggers wrote things like reader, wanna be blogger, etc.

In addition to those who spoke, there were other bloggers, too: the
Gothamist, Sunset Parker, 431 Smith Street, Weird Nylon, Callalillie,
Lex’s Folly. The editor of the Brooklynyte was there, as was a reporter
from the New York Sun and many others.

After the formal presentation, a party like atmosphere prevailed. Bloggers and others stayed around until almost 11 p.m.

Here is a list of those who spoke and a brief blurb about what they said:

A Brooklyn Life started
her blog as an excuse to write. Her husband is the webmaster, her
sister writes the Subway Reading column and a friend makes the music
podcasts.

Atlantic Yards Report
(Norman Oder) talked about the need for an alternative to the paltry
coverage of Brooklyn in the mainstream media. His web site offers
in-depth, comprehensive coverage of the Atlantic Yards Project.

Brownstoner, in disguise, talked about his new blog Brooklyn Record and the beginnings of Brownstoner, a real estate blog which is read by thousands every day.

Brooklyn Views showed PowerPoint views of the Atlantic Yards project.

Creative Time’s Eleanor
Taubman said the song that summed up her blog is "Funkytown." "My
passion lies in revealing the creative brilliance of people everywhere
and in connecting those people to one another," she writes on her blog.

Daily Heights revealed that he is actually moving to, of all places, Philadelphia. He is hoping that his great community blog will continue.

Dope on the Slope delivered a hilarious history of blogging complete with a PowerPoint speaker support.

Design Sponge charmingly
discussed her blog, which has caused quite a stir in the design world.
It all started because she was always telling her boyfriend about this nice chair, this nice pillow and that table.
Finally he said, "Why don’t you start a blog?" The rest is history. In
addition to blogging, she writes a column for House and Garden and has
a book coming out.

Gowanus Lounge
is a longtime journalist and the Brooklyn corespondent for Curbed. He
started a blog to showcase the gorgeous photographs he takes on
weekends. His writing is good, too.

Joe’s NYC presented a stunning slide show of his photographs, which, he said, depict places that will soon be gone.

Lost and Frowned projected
slides found on the street and told a hilarious story to go with them
"Gabor Cooking School." Her blog is also quirky and fun.

No Land Grab spoke passionately of the importance of blogging about the Ratner project.

OTBKB read an excerpt from the Thomas Wolfe story, "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn."

No Words Daily Pix spoke!  It was wonderful to hear him talk about his amazing photos that grace the pages of OTBKB every day.

Travis Ruse projected many
of the photographs he takes every day on his subway commute. He said he
started this project as a way to show people around the world the way
New Yorkers really live.

Not Only Brooklyn talked about his weekly e-mail newsletter which
features listings of the best music, theater, film, literature, and art
in Brooklyn and elsewhere.