Attendees of last week’s Online News Association are home by now, having successfully exited downtown DC, along with thousands of Rally for Sanity and/or Fear visitors. (A few stalwarts stayed over for’Hacks and Hackers DC at NPR.)’Craig Silverman, at’Media Shift, and Mallary Jean Tanore, at Poynter,’posted thorough summaries of the conference; ‘here are some thoughts on what ‘I saw and heard over the last few days

I noticed on Thursday that the’National Post was the conference’s Foursquare mayor (the Canadian org was later eclipsed by Howard F.) We may not have settled on any Foursquare mores yet, but it seems odd to see a company claiming a mayorship. I mentioned this to the National Post’s’Ron Nurwisah at the ONA reception at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (which, to my dismay,’has a new mayor itself). Ron pointed out that the Post uses Foursquare to leave news-relevant tips– not spam. I also spoke with some TBD folks about who reminded me of’TBD’s use of Foursquare to cover the Discovery shooting earlier this fall.’These location-based news chats made me think of Dan O’Neil’s post from this August, On Foursquare, Facebook Places, Accountability, and Alcoholics Anonymous. (“Let’s start looking each other in the eye more often, and tell each other where we’ve been. I’m certain we’ll feel more empowered. Who knows– we may even feel like’demanding accountability all over the place.”) They also made me eager to see what ideas flow into the Knight News Challenge’s Mobile category.

Two other aspects of ONA left me looking forward to December, when we get to dive into the News Challenge applications. Like Jay Rosen, I was excited by conversations I had with younger folks. I was also encouraged by the presence of so many people who traveled across borders to participate in the conference–‘Rufus Pollock, Aine McGuire of Scraper Wiki, London-based Kevin Anderson, and a crew of Canadians, including Silverman,’Nurwisah, and Kim Fox of the CBC.’I ‘also met’Rosental Alves, and’Adriano Farano introduced me to his Online Journalism Award-winning colleagues at Owni. We’re hoping to see lots of News Challenge applications from young people and from outside of the US. Or both!

The Online Journalism Awards closed the conference. Special congratulations to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, which won the Knight Award for Public Service for its report,’Flipping Fraud, and to NPR, for winning three awards, including the inaugural Rich Jaroslovsky Award, picked up by NPR digital head Kinsey Wilson. (That brought NPR’s total number of awards won on Saturday to four.)

A reminder: you can follow conversations about the Knight News Challenge on Twitter, via @knightfdn and through #knc.