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Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

NakedJen says goodbye to Santa Cruz Permanent link to this item in the archive.

This is what blogging is all about.

A platform for a person to tell their story.

NJ (NakedJen) is a NBB (Natural Born Blogger).

Why most conferences suck Permanent link to this item in the archive.

A picture named peter.gifI had lunch yesterday with Steve Gillmor. It had been too long. We talked about many things, including the fact that neither of us were going to many conferences this year. I think I've only been to three so far, maybe four. I've had the opportunity to go to dozens. But they're all the same, you spend the first half-day saying hello, then have a couple of good conversations, then you run out of things to do.

This morning after a bit of processing, it struck me -- don't know why I didn't see this before, but the problem with most conferences is that except for the people putting it on, we don't have enough to do.

So once the first hellos are over we settle in with our laptops and do what we do when we have nothing to do at home or the office -- we browse around the web, answer emails and IMs, and otherwise look for something interesting or new.

Therefore the challenge, if you want to have a truly useful conference that everyone gets something out of, structure it so that everyone has something to do at all times. Hopefully things that involve other people or the venue, if not, what's the point of going somewhere to do this stuff?

PS: Paolo describes an alternative to conferences.

What to do at LeWeb3? Permanent link to this item in the archive.

Another thing that led me to the conclusion about conferences is that I'm going to do something interesting at LeWeb3 in Paris, with the permission and support of Loic, who runs the conference (and who is interviewing me on stage).

A picture named marquisLeWeb.jpgIn the past Loic has projected an IRC backchannel, and from time to time pictures taken at the show (most famously a picture of Marc Canter sleeping), but this time Loic has given me something to do that I find truly inspiring. My job is to help get a flow of interesting pictures from the community to appear on the big screen on stage, and (if I can convince him to do this) a few screens scattered around the venue.

The first thought is to include pictures that were taken at the event itself, and of course we should use many of those, but I'd like to make it broader, to include people and places that are on the network defined by the conference. If it's like last year, there will be people tuned in from all around the world, and wouldn't it be great if we had a way to not only pull in their ideas (and we could do this better, btw) but also their imagery? It would give it a much richer world-wide feel.

One of the exciting opportunities for tech industry conferences is to find new ways to use networking on a world-wide level.

If you want, you can start uploading to Flickr pictures you think belong on stage.

Please use this tag: PreLeWeb3.

We might as well start talking about it now! ;->

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When the time is right... Permanent link to this item in the archive.

I've been saying the same thing about advertising for nearly a decade, but this time it really resonated.

"Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information."

There's little point in saying something until the time is right, then you just have to say it once, and the idea takes over and does all the work.

     

Last update: Thursday, November 08, 2007 at 9:11 PM Pacific.

Dave Winer, 52, pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in Berkeley, California.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

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On This Day In: 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997.

November 2007
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Oct   Dec

Lijit Search
Things to revisit:

1.Microsoft patent acid test.
2.What is a weblog?
3.Advertising R.I.P.
4.How to embrace & extend.
5.Bubble Burst 2.0.
6.This I Believe.
7.Most RSS readers are wrong.
8.Who is Phil Jones?
9.Send them away.
10.Negotiate with users.
11.Preserving ideas.
12.Empire of the Air.
13.NPR speech.
14.Russo & Hale.
15.Trouble at the Chronicle.
15.RSS 2.0.
16.Checkbox News.
17.Spreadsheet calls over the Internet.
18.Twitter as coral reef.
19.Mobs of the blogosphere.
20.Advice for Campaigns.
21.Social Cameras.
22.The Next Big Thing.
23.It's time to open up networking, again.
24.Am I competing?
25.Time to shake up conferences?
26.Bloggers working with journalists.

Teller: "To discover is not merely to encounter, but to comprehend and reveal, to apprehend something new and true and deliver it to the world."

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