As with (likely) everyone else who attended, I enjoyed BlogPotomac last week. Geoff Livingston deserves kudos for bringing the Washington region’s communications pros, techies, and bloggers together for a broad-reaching discussion around social media and the social Web. And his format, short talks and lots of discussion, is a great way to evolve a conversation. (For example, Andy Carvin‘s remarks led to a discussion about filtering information and identifying trust agents.)

My top three takeaways involve data–where it’s coming from and how we will package and use it over time:

(1) Sean Gorman, FortiusOne, talked about the application of geo-location and data mapping for everything from humanitarian relief to marketing.
(2) Jane Quigley, Crayon, identified three emerging Web trends: simplicity (to facilitate ease of use and participation), localization (i.e., Brightkite, Groupon), and the real-time Web (i.e., Google Wave).
(3) Peter Slutsky, Ning, talked about niche social networks. Interesting factoid: at Ning, you own your data. Seems like a big value add to me.

What’s your BlogPotomac takeaway?

Photo by ghbrett (Flickr).