building a conference social network: Pathable

After, shall we say, considerable deliberation, ChangeCamp Ottawa went with Pathable as our provider for a conference social network.  What I found compelling is that they have EventBrite integration, which means once we were ready to go, it was able to pull current registrations across (with names, emails, and affiliations) and send out Pathable invites, and as new users register it will automatically pick up the EventBrite registration and send out an invite.

While this still means a bit of extra effort on the part of users, it does reduce a bit the usual approach which is that you have to actually notice there is a separate conference socialnet and then go register separately and re-enter all your info.

It's not a free service, but we're getting great tech support.

(I should note that Pathable is a sponsor of ChangeCamp Ottawa.)

The event registration itself is at 

http://changecampottawa2009.eventbrite.com/

Once you register there it will do the automagic described above and send you an invite for

http://changecamp-ca.pathable.com/

I think it will be a good way to get people to engage before the unconference (but I'm being realistic about the amount of conversation that may go on - getting discussions going is HARD) and also just as importantly, I think it will be useful for the "oh I should connect to that guy I met, what was his name..." activity after the unconference.

What have your experiences been with conference socialnets?  Any suggestions?