Just popped back into the office after a morning at Web Directions South .

As an overall note, the conference has a real tight feel to it. Well done to John And Maxine for organising such a great event.

Before I went into the event, I got to have a play with the Microsoft Surface they have at the Silverlight stand. The videos out there don’t do this thing justice. Yeah, it’s the size of a coffee table and yeah, it’s not exactly Minority Report - but it’s not far off, and what’s best is that you don’t have to wear one of those gloves! Can’t wait to get one in my office.

After leaving the Surface alone, I headed into the keynote

To kick things of Aboriginal Elder, Allen Madden gave a Welcome to Country speech on behalf of the Gadigal Clan of the Eora nation. With tech generally looking forward from an international perspective, it was a nice show of respect by the organisers to take the time to recognise the indigenous people of the land and their long history of ownership over the area we were holding our conference.

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After a brief and entertaining intro from John Allsopp, Lynne D Johnson came up on stage to give her keynote. The title - “New Media…New Rules”. Lynne is a very well regarded thought leader amongst the international social media community, so it was a real privilege to hear her speak.

It was an interesting talk focusing on print media and its future, but unfortunately it was kind of preaching to the choir. I think Lynne figured this out about half way through, so the focus changed from one of educating us about “new” technologies like twitter to speaking more freely about her experiences and treating us as peers rather than students.

An interesting take-away from her talk - Print won’t die, it will become an elitist medium for people who have the money to pay for limited edition high quality print runs. I couldn’t help but think of Visionaire magazine being a forerunner of this future.

Interestingly, at the end of the presentation, John Allsopp gave a real-world example of different distribution strategies based on different media that the Web Directions crew are trialling for their new magazine, Scroll. You pay a premium for the high-quality limited print run today, the print on demand version released in a little while is slightly cheaper, the downloadable PDF which comes out a while after that  is even cheaper then in 3 months everything goes up on the web for free.

Moving back to Lynne’s keynote, you can get the vibe of her talk by checking out a presentation she has uploaded at SlideShare. She mentioned she’d be uploading today’s actual presentation some time soon, so keep an eye out for it under her SlideShare username - lynneluvah…i know…apparently she used to be a rapper.

For those interested in keeping abreast of the day’s activities you can keep up to date via the Twitter backchannel using the #wds08 tag

Other than that, there are 2 full days of great talks ahead, including some side activities like WebJam 8 (I’ll be presenting uTag there tonight, so wish me luck)

Member of the TechNation Australia team will be visiting sessions over the next couple of days, so we’ll keep you updated on some of the cooler things we encounter.

Global Social Media agency Headshift has recently set up shop here in Australia.  I interviewed the Managing Director Anne Bartlett Bragg to find out more about Headshift and why they have decided to open an Office in Australia.

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What is Headshift’s core business and what scope have you got in Australia currently?

“Headshift specialises in Social Software Development and Social Media Consultancy.”

With a move into the Australian Market, you are obviously anticipating significant growth in the social media and web 2.0 sectors.  What indications or observations lead headshift to setup in Australia now?

“The UK and Europe experience has taught us to identify key indicators that point to a rise in popularity of Social Media.  i) The interest in Social Media and Social Technologies has started to hit the mainstream media.  When the mainstream media starts covering a once unfamiliar technology or way of thinking, suddenly that technology begins becomes justified and less scary in the mass market, leading to larger companies to begin testing the technology. ii) The language is out there.  The market is beginning to talk about Social Media Technology in ways that can help their business reach new markets and new customers.  Talking is the first step, implementing and using the technology is the next step. iii) Early adopters are seeing results from using Social Media.  The few companies that are already using Social Media effectively are talking up the positive aspects of it, which gives other companies the confidence they need to step into this market.”

How does the social media/web 2.0 scene in Australia compare to that of the UK and Europe?

“Currently Australia is 2-3 years behind on a corporate basis, namely in implementation.  As I mentioned before, alot of companies are now talking about it, but few are actually ‘doing’ it.”

What companies do you target and why?

We target three types of companies.

1. Companies that have a high focus on internal communications - as they benefit greatly from internal social networks.  These companies are largely knowledge workers that have a dispersed audience and need to share information with one another on a constant basis.
2. Companies that want to reach their target market by leveraging off social media externally.  This may involve building their brand through the larger social networks like facebook or building a network about their brand with platforms like Ning.
3. Community projects are becoming more popular with us, as more people begin to realise the power of social media and how it can expand the reach and awareness of their cause very rapidly with little financial sacrifice.”

Where do you see the Australian web 2.0 and social media scenes in 2 years time?

“In 2 years I believe Australia would have caught up with the rest of the world.  Being slow to adopt is not necessarily a bad thing, as the early adopters lay the groundwork for the rest of the market to springboard off.  The result is that Australia will grow faster than the UK and Europe and has a real chance of possibly getting ahead of them in 2.5-3 years time.  Australia is also far more dispersed, literally, in terms of landmass than that of the UK and Europe which will mean once Social Media Technologies become mainstream and the infrastructure is there to support them, people will use the technology as a primary source of communication as it is cheaper and far more effective than what they have currently.”

Headshift employs 2 people in Australia, one in Sydney and one in Melbourne, however the company is looking to expand its employee base in the coming months.

These are all promising signs for the Social Media and Web 2.0 sector in Australia, as big players are starting to plant roots here in the expectation that the market is growing and will keep growing significantly in the near future.

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Thanks to Anne for the time taken for the interview. To find out more about Headshift visit the Headshift Australia website.