I’ve never been a huge fan of liveblogging. It seems to me the lowest form of the lowest form of journalism. No time for analysis or to choose the right turn of phrase – just ears-to-fingers say-what-you-see. Lots of people liveblog events like the Oscars and the Brits and, while very occasionally great, particularly at the hands of someone like Ken Levine, generally livebloggers end up sounding like mental patients on the back of buses. But in the spirit of ‘don’t knock it’ til you’ve tried it – here we go…

Edit: Read from the bottom up, obviously.

12:13pm: Right! That’s a wrap for the morning sessions. We’re off to get us some lunch. I think we can all agree, liveblogging is for losers.

12:00: Amazing – people are leaving in droves and are actually talking amongst themselves. Is this what we’ve become? If it isn’t sexy or financially lucrative, we don’t give a shit? Even this picture failed to get attention…

…amazing to think that in some parts of Cambodia, there’s just one tshirt between two orphans.

11:52am: Ooh, this one could be interesting. A talk by Beth Kanter about how ‘one woman poked, prodded, tweeted, blogged and mobilized a networked army of supporters to rally their friends and personal networks and raise over $90,000 for Cambodian Orphans’. Not geeky developer stuff, not rabid self-promotion, nothing about spamming children with contextual ads. Lots of people are leaving for an early lunch.

11:42am: I hate marketing. I have ultra-targetted hate for ultra-targetted marketing. Let’s be honest about what we’re talking about here – you are trying to sell something – this is not ‘community’ or ’social reviewing’ or having a ‘brand experience’ of something. It’s shilling. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know someone has to pay the bills – which is while I’ll tolerate commercials on websites and TV, but there’s an alarming trend here of blurring the lines between editorial / functionality with advertising. I don’t want Facebook or MySpace reading my profile and putting me in a bucket (an actual phrase used earlier) based on what I do socially. It’s not cool, it’s creepy.

11:38am: It’s true what they say – the most interesting conversations at any conference happen in the corridors.

Guy one: “Hey dude, what you doing?”

Guy two: “Just wandering around, seeing what’s up.”

Guy one: “Sweet.”

11:36am: I’m going for a wee.

11:35am: T’pau! First tough question of the day. “You guys are building basically cool toys – but I want to ask, where’s the value proposition.” The answer from the Stanford dudes is like a time machine back to ‘99 – “I think it’s a case of building an audience at this stage and then the money will come.” To paraphrase something in the opening chapter of Michael Wolff’s Burn Rate – “Rest in peace baby.” But, hey, I guess give the guys a break – it was a class not a business.

11:34am: Questions for the Stanford guys. The same Australian guy has now asked three questions. Greedy, greedy.

11:33am: The key ‘learning’ was that the simple apps are the most popular (people in ‘are dumb’ shocker).

11:20am: The moral of this presentation: lots of students at Stanford wanted to do a class on Facebook. They became so hooked that even when a gas main burst and they all had to leave, the carried on working in the parking lot. Go figure. Millions of dollars in revenue, though, incidentally. And the students kept the rights to their creations. Neat.

11:12am: Next up: three dudes from Stanford talking about their class on Facebook apps that created 50 ‘amazing’ apps and 10 million installs. Impressive. Incidentally, I’m sitting next to Michael Smith who is Twittering about the fact that I just status updated about the fact that he had previously Twittered about me blogging. Which I’m now blogging. Tell your friends.

11:11am: And that’s a wrap. Some interesting stuff but I can’t help but feel that – at half an hour – the presentations are a little too short to delve too deeply into any particular subject. The result is that everyone feels the need to promote the hell out of their companies’ products in the time given leaving very little time for actual wisdom. But meh, it’s still early hours.

11:10am: A question about ‘ownership of the social graph’. This seems like a good time to apologise to anyone reading this who has no interest in technology / social networking. Don’t worry, normal roadtrip, drinking, failed relationship service will resume shortly.

11:05am: Q&As. Paul is wondering if this is the appropriate forum to raise his grievance about the death of ‘is’ in status updates.

10:57 A quick aside while Ling is talking about photos – I have been reminded twice today that the problem with tech conferences is that they attract personal hobbyhorsers. That is to say, people who take the microphone during Q+As to basically lecture the room about whatever it is they would have spoken about had they been the keynote speaker. There was a guy earlier who decided that Charlene Li’s talk about openness and the need to blend together our different social graphs required a footnote about local politics. I’m a huge supporter of the University of Florida campus police model of moderation. Hire a meathead with a tazer to stand near the microphone and – any time anyone says anything that isn’t an actual question – BZZZZZZZ. Taze them, bro. I swear as they lie on the floor, flailing about like a freshly-caught trout, spewing from every orifice, they’ll be making a mental note not to be such a dick next time around. And just in case they haven’t got the message – BZZZZZZ CRACK-CRACK-CRACK – hit them again.

10:52: The event photographer is really hot. Sorry, distracted, do go on Ben.

10:49: Ooh, that’s interesting. When Facebook launched its Spanish version they created a user-generated translation system. Spanish speaking users could suggest translations for English-language content on the Facebook network – including personal information on their friends’ profiles. Other users could then vote as to whether the translations were accurate. Ripe for abuse, sure, but pretty smart. ágil mente.

10:47: You’re supposed to update from the top, right? I hope so otherwise I’m writing Memento 2.0.

10:44am Facebook wants to eliminate friction for us, the developers. I’m not a developer but I share their concerns about friction. They are also committed to an open platform, he says. This will take the form of licensing Facebook’s technology to third parties like Bebo. Interesting. Already the theme today is the inevitability of openness.

10:39am: Benjamin Ling from Facebook has taken the stage to talk about Facebook platform. I haven’t heard a word he’s said so far as I’ve been busy liveblogging the above. This is going really well.