My [talk about do-it-yourself web application development using open source framworks]–orks.html) must not have scared off enough people last year at the annual SIDLIT conference in Overland Park, Kansas. I got word today that my proposal for this year, entitled Beyond Ning: Rolling Your Own Social Network, has been accepted. Here’s the abstract:

Ning has recently announced plans to discontinue its free service, requiring network creators to pay for service or leave Ning altogether. In this session we’ll look at how this decision affects educational users of Ning, as well as alternative, DIY social networking software packages such as Elgg, Buddypress, and Community Engine.

I don’t think this will be quite as technical as my session from last year, and I’m going to work hard to allow for more time for questions. (I’ll also provide a handout this year, I promise!) If you are more technically inclined, though, it’s possible that my pitch for a Special Interest Group session for in-house web developers also got approved. I’m hoping to meet with those of you who are doing web application programming for universities or university departments, so we can all share tricks of the trade. If this SIG didn’t get approved, no worries–just track me down at lunchtime on either of the two days of SIDLIT. I’ll be the one not wearing a name tag.

What’s SIDLIT? SIDLIT is an annual distance education and educational technology conference in Overland Park, Kansas, for technologists in the surrounding area. It’s free to attend, and registration is now open. I will mention that it’s not a web development conference, even though that’s what I tend to focus on–but if you’re interested in seeing how universities, community colleges, and other nearby institutions are leveraging technology to address their unique needs, it’s worth a visit.