Went to the Blogsphere Cocktail Hour at the Hong Cong in Cambridge.
Met a lot of interesting and friendly people. Philip Wolff (in person at last), was kind enough to invite me to join his table, and I must say it was one of the more comfortable "networking" type events I've been to in a while. Maybe because it was people who were there because of something they love (blogging) rather than something they desperately need (jobs or dates). There was no sense of competition - at least as much as I'm used to. And a strong sense of collaboration and community building! It was really quite refreshing.
Met a range of interesting Blog oriented people - the buzz was about Adam Curry (I learned he was a former MTV VJ - what planet have I been living on...? I guess I was not a big MTV watching kind of guy during the 90's). He is the rock star of the Blogger world. Already get his feed!!! Look forward to hearing a couple of his venture-related ideas.
Speaking of Rock Stars - I met Anne Fitzpatrick - who heads up the http://www.RockLibrary.com she was fun to talk to. She's got some great experience putting together course materials that use Rock n Roll archive information. Had an interesting idea we discussed that might be worth pursuing - or helping to get going.
Stephen West flew in from Hamburg, and let me know that this event was the Woodstock of the blogging world. There are other blogger events, but this one is the one that will be talked about 30 years from now! Wow, hope it's true. Others wanted to know when we all get high and naked...;-) Maybe back in front of our laptops making entries.
Lis Riba of the ever fascinating Riba Rambles and librarian extraordinaire was there. Lis and I had a nice conversation with programmer Rick Heller who told us of his Neuro-sci fi novel and his interest in political blogging - he's now working on the Independents for Clark blog. I fear that Clark can't win, but Rick's experience bring's up an interesting point or question about the purpose of Blogging:
Is blogging a publishing tool to distribute ideas and promote causes - Candidates, points of view, Books you and others have written. Music... And/or is it a tool for more personal publishing around which a core of cross-fertilized readers can assemble without the noise of third-party intrusions to the conversation.
In the first case it is a marketing tool - in the second it is a community building tool. At this stage, unless you are one of the few Power Law winners (Adam?) I think it's really just a community building tool - A social networking tool that might allow you're blog to sit at the Venn Diagram intersection of a few communities of bloggers. And for those with multilple blogs - at a couple or three such intersections.
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Unfortunately, I'm going to have to miss being at today's events in person, but I'll try to look at a few streams. Tomorrow I'll probably have more luck!
Nice meeting all of you last night (and Sooz, I want to see some pictures! Thanks).
9:39:55 AM 
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