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Web Directions South: Photos

Thousands of Australian Web technologists and internet workers are attending the Web Directions South conference in Sydney this week. We dropped in to see what all the fuss was about.
By Renai LeMay, Contributor
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1 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

It could take a while for keen conference attendees to get their badges, bags and T-shirts. T-shirts came in three varieties depending on whether you were a Web writer, coder or designer.

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2 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

A packed conference full of edgy and smartly dressed young things awaited.

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3 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

ZDNet.com.au has seldom seen so many smartphones and laptops at a conference.

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4 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

Unusually for an Australian technology conference, everything ran on Apple.

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5 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

An Aboriginal elder welcomed participants to Gadigal land. He shocked the room by asking participants to turn off their mobile phones and laptops ... but was just joking.

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6 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

Web Directions founder John Allsop told the audience there was irony in a bunch of such internet-connected individuals getting together in one physical room.

Allsop said the Web worked best when it was woven into the fabric of our lives. "The point of it all is to make being human better," he said.

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7 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

FastCompany.com director of social media Lynne D Johnson gave this morning's keynote speech, telling the audience there were "new rules for new media", and going through some of the developments in the Web 2.0 world, as traditional publishing companies are forced to adapt their models.

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8 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

Question time saw the audience take its turn to have its say.

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9 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

After the keynote, we spotted some of Australia's Web 2.0 luminaries, including social media consultant Stephen Collins.

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10 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

Morning tea saw our sugar levels spike upwards.

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11 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

Microsoft has a big presence at Web Directions South, with live demonstrations of its Silverlight technology.

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12 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

iBurst had promised to provide the conference with free Wi-Fi, but the intense demand for bandwidth virtually ensured nobody could use the service's 4Mbps internet pipe.

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13 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

The Web Directions team created its own magazine to go with the conference.

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14 of 14 Renai LeMay/ZDNet.com.au

Like every good technology conference, Web Directions South came with its own bag of goodies.

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