SES Chicago 2005 began yesterday and although I couldn’t attend this year (I had a free pass from a friend with a booth in the expo hall, but I found out too late), I’m keeping up with everything that’s going on via Barry Schwartz’ Search Engine Roundtable Blog. Barry and the other site authors do an awesome job of covering the key information from each session while leaving out anything irrelevant, and the additional comments they include keep it interesting.

He also receives post session summaries from speakers and moderators alike, so even if you’re at SES it’s still a good idea to read his posts just in case you missed something or couldn’t attend a session he blogged about. It’s a great service, and since he basically saved me about $2,000 without feeling the insanely cold winds of Chicago, I’ll be looking for a way to donate to the site or at least visit a few of his current advertisers.

As Matt Cutts put it, it’s the next best thing to being there.