As most of you probably know, I was in Dallas this past weekend for OpenCamp 2010, the successor to Wordcamp Dallas 2008 and 2009. The idea behind the conference was to open WordCamp to other blogging platforms, namely Drupal, Joomla and .net, and bring everyone together as bloggers rather than users of a specific CMS.

I also gave a talk at the event, a 30-minute session as part of the WordPress track on how to share your work on the Web without hurting your copyright. The focus of the talk was how to let legitimate users use your content without letting plagiarists, spammers and others just run away with it.

During the talk, I highlighted Creative Commons licensing as well as three services that are making traditional blog content, including text and images, easier to share with attribution. They included Embed Anything (previous coverage), Clp.ly (previous coverage) and Tynt (previous coverage).

All in all, everything went very well. The conference started an hour late due to some technical difficulties but ran smoothly after that. None of the tracks seemed to fall behind and the organizers did a great job moving the entire event along. My talk seemed to be well-received with lots of good questions both in the session and afterward.

The best part, however, was meeting up with some old friends I hadn’t seen in over a year and hanging out a bit. Late night dinners with Aaron Brazell, Ronald Huereca, Doug Vann and Mike Potter were great. Also seeing old buddies like Lorelle VanFossen, Dave Moyer, Kat Rice, Rob Holmes and Jeff Guin (who was nice enough to put up with us for the last 4.5 hours of the drive up there) among countless others was wonderful.

All in all, it was a great conference and a great time. I met a lot of new people got back together with some old friends and stayed out way past my bed time the entire trip (running on about 10 hours of sleep across the three nights).

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the organizers and volunteers of this event including John P, Cali Lewis, Matthew McGarity, Mark Ramsey and Jennifer Conley to name just a few. Their hard work really showed off.

Also, as an open invitation to the people I met, please feel free to add me on Facebook and stay in touch.

I’ve embedded my slides from my presentation below and hope to have the video from the talk up soon. In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments, please let me know!

Thank you again to everyone for making the conference so great and I’m already looking forward to next year.

Photos

If you are interested in photos from the conference, I’ve created a gallery on Facebook for my images that is public for all. Please forgive the poor photo quality as they were taken in tough lighting with an old iPhone (that needs a proper burial). Crystal had the good camera and was being artistic with it.

Presentation Slides

Hello everyone. I apologize in advance for the lack of updates today as there won’t be a 3 Count column or the usual PT update. I am currently scrambling like a madman to finish all of my preparations for WordCamp Dallas. I’m heading up this evening and will be gone through Monday afternoon so there won’t be any formal updates between now and then.

However, there are several ways you can follow along and get updates while I’m gone.

1. You can follow me on my Twitter account as I’ll be posting updates from the road the entire time I’m gone.
2. GeekBrief.TV will be livestreaming the entire event so you’ll likely be able to catch at least some of my presentation that way. I am currently scheduled for 2:30 PM CT (3:30 PM ET) on Saturday.
3. I’ll be updating this post closer in with the actual slides from my talk so you can download them and even follow along.

Also, due to the scheduling difficulties, Patrick O’Keefe and I will be doing a special edition of the Copyright 2.0 Show at 10:30 AM CT (11:30 AM CT) today. Feel free to join us via Talkshoe for the live recording. However, the show most likely will not be posted until Tuesday so be prepared for a delay in getting it online.

On that note, thank you very much for your patience and I look forward to seeing many of you at WordCamp Dallas in a few days!

It’s deja vu, but in a very good way. I’m going to be speaking at WordCamp Dallas, which is being held June 27th and 28th at the University of Texas at Dallas. I’ll be joining an all-star line up of speakers including Lorelle VanFossen, Liz Strauss, Cali Lewis, Mark “Rizzn” Hopkins, Dave Moyer (whom is also a fellow host with me on Aimless Agenda), DB Ferguson, Randy Hoyt and, of course, the head of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg as well as many, many others.

Needless to say, I’m feeling a bit intimidated right now.

Despite my presence, the schedule this year is packed with great speakers. The lineup is incredible and, since all of the talks, including mine, are 30 minutes, there’s a lot more different topics being covered.

This year, I’m doing a slightly different talk compared to my usual. Rather than a talk about how to protect your content on the Web, which would be hard to cram into the new timeslot anyway, I’m speaking on how to find free, legal content for your blog and how to avoid copyright issues.

For those who are interested in protecting their work, I’ll be holding a breakout session during the course of the day and will be available to talk on that topic between sessions. I’m going to bring literature and information to help people protect their writing.

Also you can watch my presentation from the 2008 WordCamp Dallas, embedded below, even though some of the technology is now a bit dated.

I definitely hope to see many of you there. Last year WordCamp Dallas was absolutely incredible and I’m hoping this year’s will be even better. With so many old faces coming back and great new ones for the first time this year, it is going to be very exciting.

If you’re in the DFW area, definitely consider attending. It’s going to be a great event. If you do attend, definitely stop by and say hello and ask any questions. I’m looking forward to seeing you!

One thing I have learned while writing for Plagiarism Today is that my own feelings provide absolutely no indication of how well it will be received. Some articles I’ve liked have done really well, others fell flat.

Here are some of my personal favorite entries and articles at the three sites I currently write for.

Plagiarism Today

Video: WordCamp Dallas Presentation – The recorded footage from my presentation at WordCamp Dallas. Almost makes me look good.
Five Essential WordPress Content Protection Plugins – A great article for the WordPress crowd. Still mostly holds true nearly two years later.
Instant Article Ghostwriter: Nickle & Dime Plagiarism – A scraping product still not known by many bloggers.

Blog Herald

The Five Worst Ideas in Content Theft – For those who want to know what NOT to do when it comes to protecting your content.
How To Avoid Spambots By Using Pinging Services – How to avoid some spammers by changing your pinging servers.
The 20 Best Free Anti-Plagiarism Tools – One of my favorite lists of the best tools for fighting content theft.

European Journalism Centre

Avoiding copyright catastrophe – How not to end up defending a bad copyright move.
How much is a link worth? – About putting a price in incoming links.
Part One: Surviving the “Me” Era – A new series about the new age of media consumption and how to thrive in it.

Conclusions

Not all of these articles were big hits when they came out though some have found second and third lives in certain communities. However, these are all articles that I was at least modestly proud of when they were released and hope that, by giving them a little extra attention, they can help people who might either be new to the sites or missed them the first time.

Please let me know if any of these articles strike a chord with you or if there is something else I should focus on in the future.

Most of the readers of this site may think that this talk is a little bit on the basic side. It was definitely an introductory discussion that may be a little bit below some of the long-term readers of this site. However, as I found out compiling my notes, a refresher course never hurts either.

I want to give a special thanks to John P. for arranging the video and getting it online as well as the wonderful people working for the city of Frisco, TX for both allowing us to host the event in their town hall and for doing the video editing and making me look almost good.

The video is below followed by links to other session videos as well as some of my personal WordCamp memories.

Other Sessions

Here are the other sessions that are currently available:

• Matt Mullenweg: WordPress 2.5 and Beyond
• John Pozadzides: 45 Ways to Power Up Your Blog
• Cali Lewis & Neal Campbell: Just Start
• Liz Strauss: C’mon, Let’s Talk!
• Lorelle VanFossen: WordPress Power Tips
• Charles Stricklin & Company: WordPress Podcast Live (also includes me)
• Aaron Brazell: WordPress FAQs

There are other sessions slated to go up later this week or early next so pay attention to John P’s blog and see if any of the new sessions posted are of interest!

Personal Memories

WordCamp Dallas was a lifetime of memories in a few short days. I can not even begin to thank all of the people I met for making it special but I do want to thank Charles Stricklin, the nice people at the city of Frisco and everyone that contributed to the event. It was a great time.

With that in mind, here are, in no particular order, five of the strongest memories I’ve carried away from the event.

1. The unveiling of Woopra.
2. Matt Mullenweg announcing the release of WordPress 2.5 and 100s of laptops start firing up.
3. Lorelle ordering a large vegetable plate at a steakhouse and making all of the meat eaters, myself included, jealous.
4. Matt Mullenweg “hijacking” my laptop during the WordPress Podcast and using my beat up computer (his fingerprints are worth way more than the laptop).
5. Seeing Lorelle, Liz, Charles and everyone else for the first time in person and realizing that they are just as wonderful face to face as they are over the Web.

All in all, the experience was great and I can not wait until next year!

For one, tt was recorded live in front of the conference and we were able to take questions from the audience.

However, more importantly, in addition to the usual hosts, Charles Stricklin and myself, we were joined by Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, Mark Jaquith from B5Media, and Mark Ghosh of Weblog Tools Collection.

It was a very busy episode for us as WordPress 2.5 had just been released the day before, the formal announcement happening during Matt’s keynote at WordCamp, so there was a great deal to discuss and hash out.

Best of all, this episode has video, embedded below, so you can watch us make sense of all things WordPress.

People who know me know that I love April Fool’s day. However, it has always come with a conflict of interest for me on this site. Though every year I think of April Fool’s Day gags for PT, I also think of reasons not to go for it.

To date, no articles or information on the site has been knowingly and intentionally wrong. Any and all mistakes were exactly that, mistakes.

Still, PT does bring out the creativity in me. So rather than actually play any of the jokes, I’m going to list some of the stronger ideas I’ve had and why I haven’t done them.

Like all ideas, consider these non-copyrighted, feel free to steal them for next year.

The Rickroll

The Gag: Simple enough, write an article about Rick Astley and/or his record label demanding removal of the famous video (Yes, that link is a Rickroll, you have been warned) from YouTube. Then link to it repeatedly in the article and then post a notice at the end of the day that the story was a joke.

Where it Came From: Rickrolling has hit the copyright world hard. It was time to get some people back.

Why I Didn’t Do It: Fear for my life was the main reason. However, equally importantly, Reddit beat me to it earlier this year.

The RIAA Shill

The Gag: Announce that the site was sponsored by the RIAA and proceed to spend the day writing very pro-RIAA articles. Change theme to include several RIAA ads and slather the site with their logo and information.

Where it Came From: I had come up with a similar joke years ago where my then-literature site would be sponsored by Hot Topic or some other clothing store.

Why I Didn’t Do It: First, I didn’t think it was believable enough. On the other hand, the RIAA might not see the humor and come after me for trademark infringement. It’s all fun and games until someone gets a cease and desist.

The Takedown

The Gag: Replace the home page of Plagiarism Today with a notice that the site had been shut down following a DMCA notice. Then have hidden link to enter regular site.

Where it Came From: My interactions with other hosts and how they often handle copyright issues.

Why I DIdn’t Do It: I didn’t want Media Temple to get bombarded with hate mail over the issue since I’ve openly talked about where I am hosted. Also didn’t want to hurt my search engine ranking.

The Trademark Dispute

The Gag: Claim that PlagiarismToday is being forced to drop the “PT” logo due to a conflict with the PT Cruiser brand. Draft phony legal-like letters and change the logo for a day.

Where it Came From: My wife loves PT Cruisers so it seemed like a natural joke given the confusion in the house.

Why I Didn’t Do It: Besides the potential legal issues, as I just said, my wife loves PT Cruisers. I can not promise where I’d sleep if I had done it.

The Lawsuit

The Gag: Draft a phony lawsuit from a fake person and “sue” myself by posting it on the site. Link to the other person’s blog, which I would have created, and pretend that there is an ongoing dispute.

Where it Came From: This one was initially proposed by one of my many lawyer friends who was going to help me draft the fake lawsuit.

Why I Didn’t Do It: Too believable, at least to people who do not know me. Also, it would have been a lot of work, setting up and writing for a second blog just for a one-day joke.

Conclusions

Every year on this day I have a lot of fun watching the different jokes that are played and even being caught by a few of them. It’s a fun day filled with a lot of laughs.

Maybe some day I’ll think of a joke that is right for this site but, in the meantime, I more than enjoy partaking from the sidelines.

So, thank you very much for bearing with me as I take a day to recover, get caught up and answer all of my email.

I hope you found this list at least somewhat amusing and I’d love to hear your ideas for jokes too. Perhaps you can think of something I can use next year…

A Quick Word About WordCamp

I had a great time at WordCamp Dallas. You can already find photos of me and my talk as well as a video of my talk that was recorded live.

However, the live video had some audio troubles and I’m not going to post it here. Instead, I’m going to wait for the professional version that was recorded by John P and post it later this week.

Still, I do want to thank my old friends including Charles Stricklin, Lorelle VanFossen and Liz Strauss for making the event so much fun.

Also, thanks to my new friends and people I met including Spamboy, DB, and Chris Jean among many, many others.

It was a great time all around and I’m looking forward to next year!

More to come.

On a personal note, I am very excited to be going and looking forward to meeting many old friends for the first time face to face. Among the people I am eager to talk with are Lorelle VanFossen, Liz Strauss, Charles Stricklin, the entire crew at Automattic and anyone else who comes up and says hello.

I am also preparing a special, somewhat-limited-edition business card to hand out at this event. I’m getting it printed later today so I do not know how many there will be, but once these are handed out, they are gone and the design will change.

On that note, as I said, there will be no update today or Friday. I’m pre-posting the linkroll so that should go live Saturday as usual. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to follow my Twitter account as I’ll be updating regularly from the road.

Thank you for your patience and I hope to see you in Dallas!

Update!

I’ve embedded the slides that I used in the presentation below. I will be posting the video to the site in a new post some time in the coming days. Let me know what you think!

| View | Upload your own

According to the current schedule, I will be speaking shortly after lunch on the Saturday, the first day of the event. I will be giving an hour-long presentation entitled “How to Prevent, Detect and Stop Content Theft”. The presentation itself will probably last about 30 minutes with plenty of time for Q&A.

Looking at the lineup, I’ll be sharing the stage with many other blogging notables including Matt Mullenweg, Lorelle VanFossen, Liz Strauss, John Pozadzides and Cali Lewis, all on the same day.

This is going to be a huge event and I am greatly looking forward to it. If you are interested in attending the event, you can register for the event now. Registration is $20 and pays for both days as well as for the complimentary T-shirt.

If you do attend, I’d love to meet with you and hear what you have to say, so be sure to catch me during any of the breaks and introduce yourself.

The one thing that I’m not looking forward to is the drive there. It won’t be the longest drive I’ve ever made, Key West was 16 hours, but eight and a half hours is nothing to sneeze at either. Still it is going to be worth it to not only meet some long time friends for the first time, but also to be able to present to a group of dedicated bloggers about this issue.

I hope to see some of you there. Please let me know if you plan on attending so I can be looking for you!