The bloggers have invaded Las Vegas. There was no stopping it. For the third straight year, thousands of bloggers, twitterers, and affecianados converged on sin city to hear from some of the best and brightest in the industry and learn from their experiences.

This was my first year at Blogworld and I must say that it lived up to its hype of one of the largest conferences in the technology and social media scene. It was also the first year of Blogworld ever since it merged with the New Media Expo. You wouldn’t think that the conference was that large since there were only about 10 rooms and a giant exhibition hall, but most of the time it was packed.

To my dismay, I thought there would be more empirical data and facts that I could take away. However, when I’m listening to the panelists and even some of the keynotes, I don’t think that I got anything like that to write about – but there was more valuable information that would be useful from a personal level.

The 2009 conference kicked off with Laura Fitton talking about how to be awesome that had a close tie-in with Gary Vaynerchuk’s upcoming book “Crush It”. Her address helped provide a good impression on what to look forward to during this three day conference and also motivated the audience to be better than they are and to strive to be rockstars. But, of course, she couldn’t get away without mentioning Twitter during her keynote…more than a few times.

Then panel discussions were had until the lunch keynote that featured Wall Street Journal writer Kara Swisher interviewing Scott Monty about the social media work that he does for Ford Motor Company. While a great value, the dismal audio system made it hard to hear and, combined with, the incessant noise of chatter by people interested in networking instead of learning, made the whole affair rather meaningless.

More panels were held until the NEXT keynote – stay with me here…we’re only on the third keynote of the day. This time it was a panel discussion with Altimeter Group’s own Jeremiah Owyang leading the talk on whether sponsored conversations were any good. It was a bit of a lively debate and what helped this panel was the fact a genuine lawyer was on the dais to help explain the recent FTC disclosure guideline to everyone. Still, I had hoped to see more of a combative nature to the topic which would have made it more entertaining to observe.

Day 1 ended with the comedic and marketing stylings of Chris Brogan who left us with the message that bloggers need to get out of our own way and to be more helpful to others. Nothing really mind-blowing but always good to have a reminder of the potential we have to make a change in our community. I found it a great way to end the day especially since it was very much like a reality check.

To me, day 1 seemed very much like a source of inspiration. There was a lot of information passed through and that’s what people were expecting. Panelists shared their experiences and success stories, not necessarily facts and figures that you can take back to work and share it with your boss. This is probably one of the biggest things that I’ve enjoyed about Blogworld…it adds a very different feel to it and lets you just sit there and absorb the knowledge and then you can write your own success.

Photo Credit: All photos shown here were taken by Kenneth Yeung.

Laura speaks at conferences and is an expert on social media and according to her blog http://pistachioconsulting.com/blog/ is a rock climber, blue-water sailor, freelance journalist, world traveler and environmental researcher/activist.

Shel Israel, co-author of “Naked Conversations” and noted PR expert says in his interview of Laura on his Blog Global Neighborhoods “Laura is among the most recognized names and sought after consultants in social media. She gets invited to speak worldwide and clients seem to be lining up at the door.”

I know she was successful in harnessing social media not only for business, but also to personally network, make friends and support causes and wanted her to tell her story in her own words

Hear her talk about herself and social media in this video.