Saturday, December 11, 2004

Newsweek: The Alpha Bloggers. 

This evening after the party I went out for tea with the Blog Torrent people. I had just met them this morning, and we instantly hit it off. I realized why as we were walking to the coffee place. They're so young, so enthusiastic, idealistic, bright, irreverent, curious, committed, wacky, you can tell they love hanging out with each other, and it's a lot of fun hanging out with them. They're software people who totally care about users, and are doing new things that people can really relate to. This, by the way, is the philosophy so beautifully expressed in Douglas Coupland's masterpiece, Microserfs. The concept of application software as a worthwhile end, the wierdness of nerd culture, the concept of 1.0.  

Okay, today was much better than yesterday. The sessions were full, the participants enthusiastic. Seemed like almost everyone was involved, having a good time. The format works. 

A few people commented on my characterization of Scott H's presentation yesterday as an "ad." I suppose I should explain. Like Jeff Jarvis, I've been spoiled. I had participated in two unconferences before today, now three. I'm not accustomed to a vendor standing up and talking without challenge, about his own product, in glowing terms of course, for more than the amount of time it takes the discussion leader to ask him to stop. When I see that happen, to me it's an ad. I suppose I could have said nothing, but as the saying goes, you gotta break some eggs to make an omelette.  

Party tonight. Party tonight? Party tonight! 

A podcast of the discussion I led this morning. 

I'm in the room where the Podcasting session will start in seven minutes. As Tony Kahn was setting up we heard various clips of Adam spilling tea, and The Power of Pure Intellect.  

Dowbrigade reports that Bennington College is doing away with public nudity on campus. 

There's an IRC channel for this conference. I'm on it. 

Dog listening to podcasts. 

Today's grid. I'm sitting in Andrew Orlowski's session. He says that we haven't managed to get away from flames in the blogosphere. So I wonder if he thinks we've gotten away from flames from columns in the Register.  

I switched over to Rebecca and EthanZ's session on International Blogging. They get the discussion model, and as a result it's moving quickly with lots of good ideas, and bright eyes. When it works, people don't create speeches in their heads waiting for the microphone. A guy had his hand up waving, Ethan asks "is this on topic?" the guy says yes, gets the mike, says what he has to say, and on to the next person. This is the BloggerCon format. In hindsight, Andrew should not have lead off, he should have had a chance to sit in on a session to see how dynamic this format is.  

Today's voice demo. Still not healthy, but better. 

Newsweek: "Bernard Kerik may have a nanny problem. But is that the only reason he’s bowed out of the Homeland Security job?"