liked the intro video - Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar

We know story of web history

Difficult session this. Seemed to be way off the mark because it took over an hour running through the history of the web. I would guess that most people died during this. We then went on to skim widgets and more useful but was too superficial. Too much, too late!

Good Chemical Brothers Video but the session was largely superficial. Niall obviously knows the subject in detail but he had a difficult job to pitch the subject at the right level.

Personally I'm not sure if I learned anything new. I think most of the people in the room kind of knew most of what was talked about. The fact that there wern't too many questions by the audience kind of hints that either they were not the right people for the talk, or it lacked details which could be questioned on. The talk by itself, the delivery and the way it was presented was good, but would probably suite a different kind of audience.

I learned the most in the section about microformats. I knew what they were, but I did not realize that they have become as prevalent as they have with sites like LinkedIn and Yahoo.

Perhaps a little heavy with fundamental info, however I did find gems of information in the workshop. Niall is well versed in the subject and easy to listen to. Slides complemented to the talk nicely.

I came in half way through so I didn't have to sit through any of the "history" people noted above. Lots of fundamentals but I did find some useful things to take note of that I hadn't been too familiar with.

Not a good session. Seemed to be pitched at exactly the wrong level. Fundamental were not really explained (like what exactly is a microformat), but then too much time was spent on esoteric details - e.g. widgets on Vista. The high-res logos in the slides were beautiful - seemed like most of the effort much have gone into preparing those!

I was expecting some real best practice detail, such as UI guidance and how to construct a Web 2.0 looking web app. However it was more info and overview of some basic stuff, and I'm not even sure all of it was Web 2.0 relevant - the Widgets session for example was a little basic and not really that useful, in my opinion. I think the session needs to be renamed, such as a general overview of some modern trends.

I was really disappointed, not sure I picked up any Web2.0 Best Practices. Too much on widgets and not enough on UGC et al. Feel frustrated to lose 3 hours of critical time at conference.

Already lived the birth of the Web, didn't expect to pay to hear the history. On to the substance! Sorry, wasted my time and money.

I didn't come here for a history lesson, took far too long to get into the stuff I was interested in.

I agree too basic even the "advanced" part did not really get into the meat of the subject. Should have dug into details further. Mostly a waste of time and money.

Best Practices implied to me it was going to be advanced, this wasn't.

It was basic, but yet if someone know nothing about Web 2.0 the jargon thrown out would make it impossible to follow.

I enjoyed the history lesson. I know it, but not with some much detail about how HTML come about. But thats not what I attended for.

The speaker was knowledgeable, but lack some basic speaking skills, and I recommend he attending Toastmasters for practical speaking skills.

This session was painfully slow.

I was also disappointed by the workshop. I think the workshop title was misleading. I expected to cover more grounds on the web2.0 landscape, but it focused heavily on the history and only two aspects: RSS and widgets... At least I learned about microformats. Not worth the whole morning :(

I thought Niall's presentation format was nice but I left after 40 minutes of the history of the internet and basic HTML. Presumably, as internet professionals, we all know the basics of our industry. I wanted to know specific best practices when implementing 2.0 features on our site.

Niall is very knowledgeable but he was not addressing lay persons and spent too much time on telling us what we already know.
I sat through the whole thing hoping it would get better but it did not!

The course description and what I experienced were very different. I was expecting best practices, I got a lesson in HTML, widgets, and syndication. Three hours on the aforementioned concepts was way too much.

On the plus side, I enjoyed the bit about microformats.

No real take aways. We are attending a Web conference so give us more than an overview of what we do everyday.

Just to add my voice to the general theme here that for the audience, Niall pitched too much on the introductory
and not enough on useful takeaways for people actually trying to implement 'best practices'. Could have used a lot more detail, for example on the microformats.

This session was too wide ranging to really capture the audience's interest, and definitely did not follow its description. However, there were a few very interesting points during the presentation.