Apologies folks for not updating more regularly but we’ve been swept up in a whirlwind of activities as the week has gone on. And as Mike Butcher of TechCrunch UK points out Wifi only being available in dribs and drabs can make it difficult too.

It’s been a fantastic week here for all involved and the networking and buzz surrounding the Irish companies has been superb not to mention the knowledge and expertise available through the various panels and workshops at the conference which has been considerable.

The conference started with workshops on Tuesday and continues through today with panel discussions and keynotes. The sessions are very intereactive with panels interacting through live microphones on the floor and some through twitter, enabling people who couldn’t make it to ask questions as well as those in the room. I won’t go through the content of the various talks and panels as that is available in the schedule and also it should be popping up around the web over the next weeks.

An interesting facet of the conference was that they’ve run a barcamp style un-conference concurrently on the third floor. For those of you unfamiliar with the un-conference format it is an event where anyone can host a panel or give a talk. They just have to register to do so and this can be done in an adhoc manner on the day or through registration prior to the event. Branded “web2open” this gave some great opportunities to gain knowledge from other folk from the industry. A great example Niall Larkin of Relevant Media who had the opportunity to sit and have industry related conversations with the likes of Tim O’Reilly and Clay Shirky in a group discussion. I’m sure he’ll let us know all about that over the next while through his blog.

The networking opportunities are always considerable around these conferences anyway but Thursday night we had an All-Island event in the very cool W-bar with all the Irish companies, with over 100 people in the room, which was fantastic. I’ll be filling you in on that and some of the other networking fun a little later, stay tuned.