Best & Worst of FacebookCamp Montreal

We (Sequence geeks & cybermarketers) went yesterday to FacebookCamp Montreal.

It was a great event and we met a number of very interesting people who are passionate about Facebook in Montreal. By passionate I include those who hate it with passion and those who are passionately ambivalent.

There are a number of exchanges that made me think deeply about Facebook and social networks and I will be discussing those in future posts, but here is the quick take:

Best Session

Facebook: perspectives futures

Panel discussion with Bruno Boutot, Sebastien Provencher, Martin Lessard and Sylvain Carle.

This was a very useful discussion with great insights:

Martin touched on the central theme of the Social Network's 'revolution' basically giving media-like power to the average person.

Sylvain adds that what he used to do as uber-geek is now available to non-geeks

Bruno thinks "Facebook will never become 'Home' as there are too many poeple". He agrees it has a role as an aggregator of niche communities where users can really be @ home.

Sebastian had a bunch of great ideas but I was too drunk (see best beer award) to remember.

Best Beer

Griffon Red Ale

A true red with all the body and the structure, Boreal Rousse paled by comparision (no pun).


Best keynote

Co-winners Colin Smillie and Roy Pereira

OK they were the only keynote but they did a great job outlining stats and services of Facebook.

Best Application

Telephone from babyTel

Really user-friendly Facebook-integrated voip. Potentially addictive.

Full disclosure: Stephen Dorsey, babyTel president, is a good friend of mine and we have been exchanging ideas for a very long time. But the 'eggphone' is truly a great app, congrats Stephen.


Best Application (honorable mention)

iPlayLike from ilovetoplay.com

I couldn't find it on Facebook but the idea is that you claim that you play Basketball like for example Jean Chrétien and your freind can vote if they agree or not. It basically captures the essence of great Facebook apps: fun, social, light-hearted and totally useless.

In the words of Marc Chriqui from iLovetoPlay the litmus test of any Facebook app is that anybody over 35 yrs should find it to be a total waste of time.

Sorry Marc you failed your own test, since I love your app :>

Best question

Member of the audience to Colin & Roy:
"Who are you guys? and where do you get your numbers from?"

Best Mustache

Thane Calder from Cloudraker

No picture available, but let us say that he does it to save his prostate http://www.movember.com/

Note that Thane's contribution was not limited to his facial hair but he was a great MC for the Marketing segments.

Best Quote

Éric Bolduc zine editor of the wonderful ratsdeville.typepad.com
"Facebook is the blog of my blog"