This is part one of a series exploring the value of virtual attendance.

Should socially produced content be repackaged in a more “professional-looking” format to be sold to virtual attendees? Or should every session be live-streamed for free? What is the true value of a virtual experience?

Every week at 2 p.m. EDT, association professionals take an hour to discuss with each other issues facing the community. The platform? Twitter. Attaching the designation/hashtag #assnchat (yes, it’s horrible and attracts a few trolls now and then) to our tweets, we chat about technology, social media, membership and anything related to associations.

This week, the discussion was focused on takeaways from ASAE and The Center for Association Leadership’s Annual Meeting and Expo, as well as ideas to improve next year’s meeting. What began as a discussion about key learning points turned into a conversation about how to create a fulfilling experience for virtual attendees, and what it should cost — if anything.

As association professionals, do you pay conference fees for the interaction with your peers or for the content it provides?

This is a sticky situation, especially since a lot of content surrounding these conferences is now “socially created” through tweets, blog posts, podcasts or videos. Real-life attendees paid to be at the conference, and they supply other content to virtual attendees, who pay nothing.

I can’t help but be reminded of the news industry (whether it’s broadsheet, broadcast or broadband). Consumers have never truly paid for news. Advertisers have. And that’s the problem facing many industries (news providers, associations and more) today.

The business model is changing. And no one knows what to do about it.

The chat on Aug. 25 was one of the liveliest I’ve participated in in awhile. There were many, many opinions — some believe virtual attendance should be entirely free, some proposed different business models (for example, charging for edited content while allowing “raw” content to be free) and some thought event planners should hire content creators and charge for the work they generate.

Of course, every situation is different. Should valuable content be given away for free? Content creators obviously want to be compensated for their work, especially if it’s extremely time-consuming.

For starters, I don’t think the virtual experience at this year’s ASAE was too great. I’m sure everyone enjoyed following the tweets (hashtag: #asae09) and learned a lot, but there were very few live video streams of general sessions and learning labs. Jeff de Cagna streamed his session live and also took questions via Twitter, which I think is a great start.

But the majority of presenters — ideally, everyone — should do something similar. And what works for one conference may not work for another. I welcome any additional suggestions, thoughts and criticisms.

Part two will be available on Aug. 27, and will explore different options for associations, focusing on ASAE and The Center’s Annual Meeting and thoughts from the Aug. 25 #assnchat.

The chat’s transcript is available here.