FeedMagnet

FeedMagnet at the Verge 2010 Conference

We're powering a live social media stream on dozens of screens at the Verge 2010 conference right now in Austin. 2,100 attendees are able to participate by posting to Twitter, Flickr, Twitpic, yFrog, and other social media sites. Their updates are shown live for everyone to see just a minute or two after they post them. The attendees of the conference are mostly from churches that are experimenting with ways to get their churches more on mission. One way they can do that is by using FeedMagnet with for their churches

Here's an inside look into how we're powering the conference.

Pulling in Content

We're powering two feeds for Verge:

1. Updates from a couple dozen trusted folks that are on the Verge "Social Media Team" - this feed is shown on the Verge website.

2. Updates from attendees - we're doing a series of searches across Twitter and other social media channels to pull in content from people mentioning Verge. This feed is shown on two giant screens in the main session room and on dozens of smaller displays around the venue.

Filtering and Moderation

Each update from the public feed is run through several layers of filters to ensure that they are not only on-topic, but also free of words and phrases that we don't want to have included in the stream. We also have blacklisting controls on this feed so we can block individual people if they try to cause trouble by posting disruptive comments.

We don't do any filtering on the updates from the social media team, but we do make sure they mention Verge or some of the main conference topics before pulling in their updates. This helps ensure that the feed on the Verge website is not only high fidelity - with posts from the speakers and other conference leaders - but also on topic - not including updates about where the speakers are headed for lunch.

» More about using filtering to increase the relevance of content

Displaying the content

We have three custom-designed layouts for displaying the updates from Verge - based on the size of the screen and context (live/online). A few views of the conference - captured by the feeds themselves - are shown below:

The response has been great - everyone is talking about the screens - and even Tweeting about them - which is fun because their messages show up on the screens as well.

» Learn more about how FeedMagnet can be used at your conference

» Learn more about using FeedMagnet at your church