Archive for June, 2006

Post BloggerCon Skypecast

Posted on June 25, 2006. Filed under: BloggerCon |

Well I guess Tom Morris messed up on the last announcement so he has rescheduled the Skypecast to 2 pm eastern, go here to see more info

Day 2 of BloggerCon IV

Posted on June 24, 2006. Filed under: BloggerCon |

Today was the second and finally day of BloggerCon IV, which I attend virtually again via IRC, the docNography and the Webcast. Today there was virtually no live video feeds, but we went on, but based off of people, who actually attended, the room was not as full as some people thought it would be. Maybe it was a little too much Smoozing the night before?

Well the day started of with Dave Winer leading the Half Time Show, with the MP3 file here, and the docNography here. This session mainly dealt with what can we do to stop the limiting of knowledge to the masses, and getting information back to developers.

Session number 2 was called How to Make Money, led by John Palfrey with the MP3 here and docNography here. This session discussed the numerous ways to make money with blogs. There is alot of good info in this session, ranging from using Adsense, or sponsored Advertisement to making money from your blog via consulting. This particular session is probably the best one of the day.

The next session title Building Bridges, led by Elisa Camahort from BlogHer with the MP3 of the session here and the docNography here. Going into this particular session, I thought they were going to discuss how to create a community around your blog, or getting to know more about your fellow Bloggers, boy was I surprised. To me this session was more of a complaining session, about how women or minorities don't get a fair shake in the Blogosphere, which I think is a bunch of bull. However I am a fat white guy, so I probably don't know all that much. My opinion is if I find a blog that is interesting to me, I will read it. It doesn't matter if you are man or a woman, green or blue, as long as your opinion makes me think, or is somewhat insightful I will read it. I am interested in Tech, the Web, Science, Space, and Sports just to name a few, is it my fault that the majority of bloggers on this subject are men? Are there women who blog about these subjects? Yes. Am I supposed to read these blogs because they are written by women? No, I read blogs with insight and that are interesting. Sorry for the rant, but I had to get that out. With the end of this session they took their Lunch break.

After comming back from Lunch, Lance Knobel kicked off the Session about the Election 2008, MP3 and docNography. This session covered the topic, "what can blog/bloggers do to influence elections." While this discussion mainly centered on American politics, it was interesting to listen to. For me politics is one subject I think people should make their own mind up on, so if you are interested in this session, listen to the MP3 and follow along with Doc Searls notes.

Ryanne Hodson kicked off the Video Blogging session next. MP3 of the session is here and Doc's notes are here. Truthfully, I did not pay too much attention to this session since Video Blogging is not something I am interested in right now. So if you want to find out more about the tools and uses of Video Blogging listen to the MP3 while following along with Doc's notes. The thing I did find funny about this session was that it was about Video Blogging but yet there was no video available for it.
Mike Arrington of TechCrunch fame drew the honor of talking about Core Values, you can follow the docNography here. Mike started this session off talking about comment trolls, and how it felt to get negative or abusive comments. Then the session tackled the issue of is it ok to delete comments? The session ended with the topic of conflicts of interests and what should you do when it happens to you. This session really got under my skin, I haven't heard so much whining since the election of 2000. Trolls will always be there, and if they see that their comments hurt you, then they will continue. If you can't handle the trolls then turn off the comments, or don't blog. I'm not going to say much about this session since it did annoy me, and I don't want to say something I might regret later.

For some reason Dave hasn't posted the final 2 MP3's, so you can check the BloggerCon website's MP3 section, to see if he posts them after I finish writing this.
Dave Winer finished BloggerCon IV with his Fat Man Sings session, here Dave started talking about why he has chose to stop blogging at the end of this year. Dave hinted he might write a book after his blogging days are behind him, or he might come up with a new form of media. The session moved on to what BloggerCon V can do next year.

My thoughts on this BloggerCon, well it was interesting to see my first conference or unconference, but there are some things I would of liked to have seen. Such as more use of the suggestion or comments from the IRC, all of use in IRC had some good comments or ideas at times, but nothing was seen by the group as a whole. Maybe they could of had some sort of Skypecast available for people from the IRC to call in and make their comments. Really this conference was mainly for the big hitters in the Blogosphere, not for the average users. I really think there should be an effort to use the views and comments of the average user more. Most of the people at the conference were people who have some of the top drawing bloggers out there, not the small guys like me. Thats just my opinion. Overall it was nice to see this in virtual person, I think I would like to attend next years BloggerCon, if possible.

Tom Morris is putting on a podcast chat using Skypecast tomorrow at 5pm BST (10am PDT or 12pm EST). Here are the details. It's for people who are either at BloggerCon or have been listening to the streams or podcasts or following the blogs and Flickr.

My thoughts on Day One of BloggerCon IV

Posted on June 24, 2006. Filed under: BloggerCon |

After spending just about all day sitting at my computer, listening to the BloggerCon webcast, then watching it via Kevin Marks, all the while reading everything on the IRC channel, and Doc Searls real time outlining, I found the first day very interesting.

First thing I want to talk about is Doc Searls and his real time outlining. Doc really kicked some butt, he was using the OPML Editor, to do the outlining. Doc got just about everything talked about written down, it may not be well written, but it has all the information discussed. I'm betting Doc must of been weary yesterday, after all that intense listening, and typing. Big Thanks go out to Doc

The webcast and video feed were nice, it allows average people, such as myself, to see and hear how some of these "A-list" bloggers interact with each other. Dave Winer has some info on how to tune into the webcast for today. The IRC was pretty nice and high powered. A few names gracing the IRC channel were Robert Scoble, live from his home, Chris Pirillo, Jason Calacanis, Matt Mullenweg, and Nick Douglas, just to name a few. There were a few things I didn't like about the IRC, such as when Scoble said something, all of a sudden it was a get to know Scoble channel. I know it's not Roberts fault, and it was kind of nice to see him talk live, but it wasn't the point of the channel. Then there was the arguement between Dave Winer and a user named McD. While Dave did have a good point about McD bashing people without have the guts to publish his real name. I didn't think the IRC channel was the place to continue the snarking. Dave wouldn't let it go, but I don't know the whole story behind it. Overall though the IRC channel had some really good discussions on the topic being discussed.

Now on to the conference, I do have to say the best session was the Emotional Life session hosted by Lisa Williams. The MP3 of the Session is here, the docNography is here. It was very good to here some of the better bloggers out there talk about why they blog, how they blog about emotional issues, and how they deal with comments. If you can only listen to one MP3 from the first day this is the one.

The worst Session in my opinion was the Standards for Users session hosted by Niall Kennedy. MP3 is located here, with the docNography here. While it wasn't really Niall's fault, because his session got hijacked right off the bat by Dave Winer. You see Dave wanted Niall to explain the RSS to the people, Dave said it would only take about 5 minutes, then there was a discussion about that for about 10 minutes, then the discussion of RSS took about 10 to 15 more minutes. The thing is Dave and Niall discussed this over lunch and Niall shot Dave down, but I Dave thought it was important enough to ask the attendees, I guess. While there were a few discussions about standards, especially a standard format for exporting user data from blogging software and programs like Flickr.

A couple of moments in the session was Marc Canter getting a shameless plug in for his newest venture, without saying a word. They were discussing how to get data out of Flickr, he made his point and then turned his back to the crowd showing the back of his T-shirt advertising his current venture, People Aggregator. Another moment was during the discussion, those of us who were watching the video feed got an interesting view. Someone was nice enough to capture it and share it with the world.

You can image we were very happy with this view.

The first day had it's up's and down's for me, but over all it was very interesting. I will be joining them today to listen in and I hope it is as interesting as yesterday. So far for my first conference, it has been an interesting and educational experience, and I am glad I am taking part in this virtual way