Live Coverage of Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology/European Conference on Computational Biology (ISMB/ECCB) 2009

In last year's report on microblogging ISMB 2008 [1], the authors anticipated that new methods of using the Web and of reporting the conference would make live blogging even easier (http://www.bork.embl.de/~jensen/ismb2008/keynotes.php.html). This year, the ISMB/ECCB 2009 Web site contained all of the features of the mock-up, far more live bloggers participated than last year, and there was increased coverage of talks and special sessions. We, in turn, look forward to the new technologies appearing on the horizon (such as Google Wave), and how both tools and bloggers will make next year's conference an even greater success. In summary, conference organizers found that microblogging added value for all conference attendees, and allowed attendees to follow the thoughts of others as well as to follow presentations that conflicted with others they wished to see. The usefulness of live blogging extends beyond the duration of the conference, remaining accessible long after the conference has closed.