BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis

October 05, 2003

Meet the future
: Len Apcar, editor-in-chief of NYTimes.com (and, it so happens, a college classmate of mine for a year) came to Bloggercon "to get an idea how we can do this." Jay Rosen chronicles his education by panel. I take my hat off to Len and the Time for coming and learning from real bloggers.
On the other hand, my current whipping boy, the Online News Association, invited known editors who happen to blog to its upcoming funfest when, instead, they should have invited the bloggers who never worked in the business, who hold the business in disdain and say so; they should have invited the "enemy" -- no, they should have invited the future. (That's just one of the obnoxious things I plan to say when I'm on a blogging panel there). Or more of them could have shown up at Bloggercon; we should have seen people there from TV, radio, magazines, and newspapers.
I'll admit to the sin of pride in my personal relationship to big media and nanomedia; I happen to live in both worlds, wear both hats; I am a media bigamist. It's a wonderful perch from which to watch the revolution in populist media.
Usually, when I show up at such gatherings, I'm there as big media boy. Here, I was nanoman; few knew my other life and fewer cared. I was there as a blogger.explode arena 1.2 sys

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Phil Donahue moments
: Not that you should care, but here are my questions and notes before the session we had on presidential politics and blogging. I tried to Phil-Donahue it and ask lots of people lots of questions because, as Winer, said, this was not a panel (or it was a panel and everyone was panelists). It was fun; hope I did a decent job. The only problem with standing up front the whole time is that I couldn't blog or take notes so I'll leave it to others. explode arena 1.2 sys

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Tripping
: I'm going to do this on every trip I take from now on: I downloaded a movie from Movielink to watch on the train ride (The Quiet American, grade B). For $4.95 (half off for an introductory offer), you get to keep the movie on your hard drive for 30 days; once you start watching it, you have 24 hours to watch it as often as you want and then, like a secret Mission Impossible message to Mr. Phelps, it self-destructs and erases itself. No DVDs to worry about returning. No late fees. No NetFlix deliveries. I may not watch a bunch of movies this way, but for a few hours on the road, this is great.explode arena 1.2 sys

: A postscript to my aborted attempt to take the new Limoliner to Boston: On the Amtrak Acela back tonight, I eavesdropped on a guy with a Scottish accent in the next row talking about connectivity on the road and other issues and I figured out: He's from the Limoliner. I apologized for eavesdropping and asked and, yes, he was headed to New York for a 5 a.m. appearance on WCBS to promote the bus. The incredibly forgetful stewardess on the train messed up his dinner order and I know he was thinking: Next time, the bus.explode arena 1.2 sys

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Homeward bound
: First and foremost, give a hand to Dave Winer and the Harvard Law School Berkman Center for throwing Bloggercon.
Fine, Dave's a controversial figure. Fine, some sessions were better or worse than others; always the case. And, yes, I hated being away from the kids for a precious weekend.
But if you didn't go, you missed something good.
What struck me most, in the end, was the community in which I now find myself. I started making a list of all the people I already knew -- in person or via blog -- whom I'm glad I got to see here and added in the new nice and smart people I met and it's a long list (in no order, with no links, just a few: Dave, David, Chris, Chris, Scott, Doc, Dan, Joi, Glenn, Halley, AKMA, Kaye, Dan, Ed, Oliver, Elizabeth, Len, Hylton, Adam, Andrew, Britt, Cam, Gene, Scott, Susan, James, Jay, Josh, Matt, Phil... you get the point). The hallways were great.
So thanks, Dave and company.explode arena 1.2 sys

: More posts on the remainder of the day later, on the other end....explode arena 1.2 sys

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Multi-talking
: At these conferences, it's common to see someone (usually Joi Ito) start an IRC channel for chat among the participants or, if it's webcast, among those watchig from afar. At this session, Kevin Marks put the channel up on the projector so all could read. This quickly changed the tone of the discussion. Usually, the IRC backchannel is the place for the snarky side comment. Now, all can see. I pointed this out on the channel and it scared a few of the participants. But I like the transparency. It's multi-talking.explode arena 1.2 sys

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Fame
: One of the neat thrills of coming to blog conferences in Boston is seeing Dan Bricklin. I'm in awe of the man. If you don't know why that's a big deal, that's a shame, and here's why:
Bricklin really made this revolution happen. He co-created VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, and that is the single thing that made computers useful. Making things useful is, in my mind, a high art. Jobs and Woz made computers cool and accessible. Gates made them, depending on your perspective, rich or evil. But Bricklin made them useful. That is what put computers on every desk in the world. That is what allowed them to be connected, in turn. That is what led to the Internet, after all.
Anyway, over wine and cheese last night, I was standing in a group with bloggers including Bricklin and he pointed to another blogger (sorry, I can't remember who) and said how excited he was to get a link from that person. He spoke with the excitement of a Chicago mom getting called on by Oprah to speak on camera.
"But, Dan," I said hesitantly, "you're the... legend."
"But I'm not a legend to me," he said.
Even Bricklin loves blogjuice.explode arena 1.2 sys

: At the technology session this morning, Bricklin (too briefly) got to talk about the future of these tools and all they need to do. He wants to be able to place and edit photos and edit text fluidly. It will take millions of dollars in development, he says. But it could be done in open-source...explode arena 1.2 sys

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Extra sensory blogging
: Kevin Marks, who has said the smartest things abstracting this phenom at Bloggercon, said this morning that thanks to blogs, "I can read people's minds."explode arena 1.2 sys

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God and blogging
: Last night, I walked to the blogging wine & cheese fest with the Rev. AKM Adam and his blogging son, Si. AKMA knows my sister, the Rev. Jarvis.
We talked about the effort it takes to get churches to start weblogs. (My son is using Movable Type to replace my little church's little site soon.) There's still some ignorant fear of this Internet thing. But that will have to fade.
AKMA said one of the best reasons for church's to create weblogs is so they can be found in Google.
Yes, even God needs Googlejuice.explode arena 1.2 sys

: And here's why He needs it: I don't usually go to church when I'm out of town but I thought I would this morning because it'd be neat to sit in a service in a sanctuary built in 16something. So I went online to find a like-minded congregation but found, to my shock, that not one of the possible churches here had more than one late service.
So instead, I'm headed over to Bloggercon, where, of course, they'll be worshipping blogs.explode arena 1.2 sys

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Good morning
: I wondered where Jay Rosen disappeared to last night at Bloggercon dinnertime. He was writing his notes on day one.
Glenn Reynolds went to dinner and also wrote up some notes. But that's what makes Glenn Glenn. Also, he never did get his laptop connected to Harvard's network (all the time muttering that his university has a network open to all... and that his alma mater, Yale, provided afternoon refreshments at its blogger conference) so he had posts pent up.
I was thrown off by the connectivity problems and never did post much. And I was not as energetic as either Jay or Glenn; I went to bed so I could get up this morning and run. I fail that IQ test.
See everybody's blogs here.explode arena 1.2 sys

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