I love conferences — doesn’t matter if I’m attending, speaking, or mingling — I’ve never met a conference I didn’t like. Often times I don’t even fully realize all that I’ve learned until months later when the experience has had time to marinate.

Last week I attended the web 2.0 Expo in New York at the Javits Center. It was my second year attending, and it’s definitely high on my list of favorites. Almost all of the speakers I saw were inspiring, enlightening, and entertaining (one was hilarious). The vibe was great; no shortage of interesting people to mingle with. According to the program, the theme of the conference was “The Power of Less.” Think Google; think Twitter; think simple, clean, stripped down and lean.

I’m going to attempt to list the highlights below, for me, day by day:

Day 1 – Alistair Croll and Sean Power set the bar very high on day one for the rest of the conference with their full day workshop on “Communilytics.” I didn’t start out in their session, but after watching the twitter stream all morning, I jumped in there after lunch and they did not disappoint. Their slide show is chock full of useful info.

Day 2 – I saw a lot of great speakers day two, including Tara Hunt, Kevin Rose, Jay Adelson, and Chris Brogan. Best discovery that day was Caterina Fake’s new site, Hunch. Most profound hour spent was at the end of the day with Jeff Jarvis. He spoke about the world going BETA, why that’s a good thing, and what that means, industry by industry. The subject of his talk might develop into his next book, which I can’t wait to read. His weekly podcast, This Week In Google, is a bevy of good info and insight where he talks about a lot of the same themes and issues.

Day 3 – There were many highlights Day 3. Loved the Launch Pad (startups pitched their ideas to the crowd); Gina Trapani explaining Google Wave was a must if you are as confused by Wave as I am. Session on Security, Identity & Liability in Social Media blew my mind with issues I had never even considered (and still don’t want to) But the highlight of all highlights was most definitely Baratunde Thurston. I’m not even going to attempt describe it. His talk, “There’s a #Hashtag for That,” is a must watch:

Day 4 – Most thought provoking speakers to me were Ching-Yung Lin talking about “What’s a Friend Worth?” and Genevieve Bell discussing what to do about people who aren’t on the internet (can you imagine?).