Lightning talk: Hacking EuroPython.org (with Django)

I gave a lightning talk yesterday at the EuroPython conference about my little MyEuroPython mashup. The intention of the talk was not to promote the site but to raise a conversation about how to make better conference websites (and especially EuroPython.org).

Main points of my presentation were that conferences are about communication and interaction. Current EuroPython.org does not give any tools for that, and it would be great to have something more 2.0 for the site.

For example:

  • Simple site structure with good (live)search
  • Registration and personal preferences using OpenID
  • Allow commenting of sessios
  • Provide a personalizable timetable (that is useful for example when using a mobile phone)
  • Free the data; RSS feeds (and possibly other APIs?)from everything
  • Aggregate blog entries, images, links to the main site

Good thing was, there was talk about the presentation afterwards, and we actually volunteered for doing the EuroPython.org with Django next year. Hopefully the discussion lives on!