Southwest Airlines was a sponsor and exhibitor this year at BlogWorldExpo in Las Vegas. Christi McNeill from Southwest Airlines talks to me about their social media strategy, why she blogs and tweets and how they use social media tools as a company. Their social media team is only two, but they’re active with over 1 million followers on Twitter and in the top ten in travel for ‘influence.’

The Blog World Expo closing ‘talk show’ panel included Rob Barnett, Adam Corolla, Penn Jillette from Penn & Teller, Cali Lewis and Jeff Hayzlett. What’s their secret? Why do they blog? What do they tweet? What is happening with new media and how does it impact them? Listen to hear what these five illuminaries and entertainers think. Says Penn, “Twitter is one of the most intimate ways we can communicate today.” The video is in three parts: Part I, Part II and Part III.

Listen to a drill sargent’s life and why the U.S. Army showed up at BlogWorldExpo to promote and talk about army life. Jonathon is one of the many bloggers who is telling his story. He writes about his trips, including the feelings he has when he is on the ground. Andre Dean also talks about his ‘stories’ as well as why he blogs. Have a listen.

Asks Barry Moltz in a session at BlogWorldExpo last week entitled: Feeding Your Addiction – How to Create and Market Your Content to Drive a Professional Speaking Career, “What’s Your Bio, What’s your Brand and What’s Your Promise?” And then, ultimately what’s your platform going to be? Below is a clip from his talk.

At the Jenn-Air booth at BlogWorldExpo in Las Vegas last week, celebrity chefs talk on social media, how they started blogging and how it has had an impact on their careers.

Take a meander through the BlogWorldExpo show with me so you can get a sense of its energy and who some of the players, sponsors and exhibitors are. Oh yeah, and you can see Scottish blogger Ewan Spence juggle amidst the crowd.

For an art exhibit at the Tate Modern in London, artist Ai Weiwei covered the Turbine Hall with 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds. Each of the seeds were made by 1,600 Chinese artisans.

Bubbalon demoed at the latest VatorSplash in San Francisco. More than just a rating site, you can give a ‘score’ in real time about people, places and things, as you experience them, including the ability to rate a venue, store, cafe or restaurant as you check into Foursquare.

You can even write a review about something. Bubbalon asks people to share their feelings, and gives them the ability assign an emotion in addition to a 1-100 point score. Bubbalon’s “SMART CONNECT” feature is built to recommend “Bubbalonian connections”, based upon similarities in ratings and feelings. Listen to the video below and Todd Hamilton and Alex Galkin from Bubbalon will tell you more.

Brandon Litman and Kyle Ruddick from One Day One Earth came to Los Angeles to tell 140 Conference attendees and speakers about their story, which encompasses so many others from around the world.

One Day on Earth started in September of 2008 with the goal of creating a unique worldwide media event where thousands of participants would simultaneously film over a 24-hour period. The idea for the project was conceived while watching musicians from very different regions of the world collaborate on stage at the opening night of the 2008 World festival of Sacred Music.

Their initial attempts to create music together were awkward, and it was clear that they had never collaborated prior to this moment. Eventually though, over the period of a couple minutes, what was disharmony became harmony, and a beautiful fusion of music came together for the first time. The moment inspired a similar vision for another universal form of communication—cinema.

As for how this initiative took off, he says, “we talked to the United Nations about a collaboration for when we went live. We start encouraging conversations to happen on the site and people realized they were not alone, and the idea started to live on its own.” He then shows us a moving video that someone created from south Africa.

Comedian Jason Pollock hit the 140 Conference stage this past week in Los Angeles. Amusing and entertaining as always, he talks about what he’s been working on and the future.