The final day of our three-day swing through the UK, the second annual
Global Voices conference, was invigorating.  The team of 75+ who
assembled — bloggers and editors from around the world, actor Richard
Dreyfuss, academics like us, the executives from Reuters and
foundations like MacArthur and Soros who are supporting it — comprise
an amazing crew. 

What I found most interesting was the change in tone from last
year.  At the first GV conference a December ago, the idea seemed
intriguing but a bit far out, unfinished.  Today, with 300,000
unique visitors per month and a BOB award as the world’s best
journalistic blog, GV is already an institution.  Its existence
seems obvious, necessary, sensible.  The issues are no longer “how
could we get this off the ground?” and more about the tricky things
that come with success, about growth, about sustainability. 
Amazing what difference a year makes.

Here’s Ethan’s post; here’s what the Guardian’s Jane Perrone said about it; and Rebecca, from the vantage point before the conference.  The live-blog notes are amazingly extensive.