140 Character Conference in LA

I attended the 140Conf in LA today. It was my first social media meeting. I enjoyed it quite a bit. So it was worth the 1+ hour drive from Orange County to The Comedy Store. The host Jeff Pulver flew in today from NYC and will go back with a red eye flight.

I think I added Jeff on Facebook initially because he is a friend of a venture capital list Fred Wilson who writes a quite influential blog called A VC. Then I got to know this conference through Tweeter.

Much to my surprise, the conference is not technical at all. And a lot of passionate female twitter users showed up. Since I suspected a large number of twitter users, I used tweeps around layer of the Android augmented reality app Layar. I was very surprised by how many twitter users and their pictures showed up on the app.

The after party is at Viper room. I talked to a USC at the conference and a Pepperdine MBA at the after party. I think MBA's can do great in social media and mobile internet. I think the challenge here is that with the student loans typical MBA's have, it's harder to work with smaller companies and startups which have tight financial constraints. But for those who have the interests in the field and are less concerned about their personal financial situation, I think mobile internet is an exciting field for MBA's to pursue their career.

Key words from the conference: Twitter, Facebook, privacy, Foursquare, China, Social Responsibility, Marketing