The pair of conferences are slightly different, although both cover what most conferences cover–the Next Big Thing.

GPS, of course, drills in on the business and technology of social-networking platforms, which has been the most hyped arena of the last year, as its proponents push the idea that everything in computing is going social.

I agree with the larger picture, of course. But I also remain dubious about the insane valuations that persist in the sector, which go hand in glove with the fact that business models remain in their infancy.

Still, it is interesting to debate important issues like widget development, data portability and changes in user engagement and consumer behavior.

By contrast, ETech, which takes place through tomorrow, is far less brass tacks, focusing on the kinds of technologies coming down the pike from hackers. That includes things like body, brain and genomics hacking, ambient data streaming, green tech, open source robots and bionic software.

Here’s a video I made Monday, which includes an interview with GPS West host Dave McClure, some clips from sessions and Tim O’Reilly’s opening speech for ETech:

Sadly, I was not there to see Google’s Larry Page land a helicopter on the lawn up at Tim O’Reilly’s annual geekfest called Foo Camp, so I could mock him to his face.

(Note to Larry: That better be an awfully big solar footprint you’re building at the Googleplex in Silicon Valley to replace all the carbon emissions your various flying machines spew.)

Since I had to trade kid duty, I could only get up there Friday night for the opening festivities, which are held annually at the Sebastopol headquarters of O’Reilly Media.

Still, it was well worth the trek north of San Francisco to get a short glimpse of some new and sometimes quite wacky ideas about the future of digital development.

The conference is almost entirely user-generated, as people sign up to lead sessions on a variety of sometimes esoteric topics in rooms scattered all through the facility.

While most conferences look at the here and now, Foo Camp is aggressive in its quest to get people to think outside the box.

In fact, if there were a box, the brainy denizens of Foo Camp would probably turn it into a time machine/beer dispenser/robot ninja warrior.

It could happen.

Many big wheels and many more big brains were there to figure it all out. Indeed, as you will see from this video, there is still a very pure and very infectious enthusiasm after many years at Foo Camp, even though some have complained about its ever-larger size.

So, for those who wanted to go and could not get in, here is a rather long glimpse at the first night of Foo Camp, including campers trying unsuccessfully to introduce themselves with only three words, a look at the tents, a talk with Tim O’Reilly and some in attendance explaining why they come: