I just initialized the BloggerCon III FAQ page.

http://www.bloggercon.org/iii/faq

If you have any questions or comments, please post them here, and I'll try to answer them on the FAQ.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 10/12/04; 7:34:55 AM - Comments [0] -- Trackback [1]

We're hearing from people who want to come to BloggerCon, asking if we can re-open the wait list. Here's the deal.

There are two major constraints, money and space. With yesterday's Paypal outage, no money has come in beyond what was raised last week. Right now we don't have enough to cover the expenses, food, wifi, etc. So until we've met the minimum numbers, we can't let any more people in, it would be irresponsible.

Second, there's only so much space, but we've been able to do more juggling. It turns out Stanford has audio-video facilities that allow us to use the second largest room as an overflow room for the largest room. This means that the opening and closing sessions and the Podcasting session can have 110 more people if we shuffle the schedule.

So all this adds up to a "maybe" re re-opening the waitlist. I'll keep you posted here and on the BloggerCon blog.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 10/12/04; 6:50:15 AM - Comments [1] -- Trackback [0]

Last Thursday we put up a Paypal page asking for donations to help buy food, refreshments, pay for cleanup, networking, webcasts, and other expenses. The response was fantastic. Many thanks to the following people who gave generously: Scott Loftesness, Dan Gillmor, John Rhodes, RDS Strategies LLC, Craig Cline, Jason Cosper, James McGee, Fred Ballard, ES Designs, Henk Doornbos, Pito Salas, Bret Fausett, Roland Tanglao, Gene Becker, Lawrence Bouchie, Todd Sattersten and Danny Sullivan. And the first people to give: Adam Curry, Britt Blaser and David Czarnecki.

We could still use more help, we've cut corners putting together BloggerCon, so every dime we spend will really help make the conference better.

Here's the final list of people participating in BloggerCon III at Stanford Law School on November 6. Basically we were able to accomodate everyone on the wait list. Looking forward to seeing you all in just 25 days! Next on the agenda will be signup for the Friday night dinner-party and for the Saturday night Food For Thought dinners. Both events will take place in the Palo Alto area.

# Posted by Dave Winer on 10/11/04; 7:52:03 AM - Comments [1] -- Trackback [0]

I am shut in a bone box and trying to fasten myself onto white paper.
- from the novel Free Fall written by Nobel Laureate William Golding.

We no longer use typewriters to create paper pages, but as we fit our fingers on the keyboard, letting the thoughts transfer into typed text, we are still trying to fasten ourselves onto something. How do blogs allow us to break free of our bone boxes and connect with each other? How are we fastening ourselves to our posts and to other people? What kinds of relationships are we building through blogging? Which sections of ourselves do we let others see? How do we choose what goes into our blogs?

In this BloggerCon session on the Emotional Life of Weblogs, we can share with each other our experiences in blog relationships and representations. What lines have you drawn concerning the personal content you put on your pages? How do you censor yourself? What communities have you discovered or created?

How does blogging impact relationships both inside and outside the blogging community? Does reading a person's posts provide a false sense of intimacy so that we assume we know someone? Are we "friends"? Or are we "strangers"? Who knows us best?

Do you blog about your family? Your lover? Your best friend? Your boss? Your neighbors? Why or why not? Have you shared something on your blog that encouraged someone else? Have you regretted writing a post because of the way it affected people you know? How are we connecting on- and off-line?

Some bloggers reveal intimate details of their days. What does it mean when we can know aspects of someone's private life yet we have never met in person and might not recognize each other if we did? What happens when we share things with each other on our blogs that are "taboo" to talk about in society or difficult to do face-to-face? How are we integrating ourselves? Is the person who appears on your blog different from the person who appears at BloggerCon?

At BloggerCon, I hope we can travel together through this terrain and share our experiences of connection. I also hope we can try to connect with other sessions. For example, I believe that Information Overload impacts relationships too, both within blogs and outside blogs. And the Core Values of the Web become the basis of building relationships through blogs.

Bring your bone box: let's discuss and discover what happens when we try to fasten pieces of ourselves onto a blog page.

# Posted by Julie Leung on 10/7/04; 2:06:46 AM - Comments [0] -- Trackback [1]

How far is it from "always link" to "only connect?" 

This session continues a thread begun here by Michael Watkins and crowd.  We will be about blogging and academic life, but in between those two terms I have placed a third one-- "the disciplines."  Otherwise known as your department.

Everyone who understands the modern university, anyone who has been immersed in an academic field, is familiar with these terms.  A discipline is an organized area of study.  It's also the people who study in that area, those who are said to be "in" the discipline.  To know your discipline is the first requirement for membership in the academic community at its advanced levels.

And if you want to get an ID card, you better know what department and school you belong to.  The disciplines rule the unversity because people in the university belong to them. 

But also because they "form" people in their image. Political science begets political scientists.  Then the scientists raise little ones.  They publish journals, of course.  They form assocations, and those associations endure.  They meet annually in New York,  Las Vegas, Atlanta.  The disciplines, some have argued, even sink deeply into the self.  For sure they perpetuate themselves across generations.  They permit the mind to specialize and build up advanced knowledge.  They also orient scholars to each other to create a sense of "belonging," even though some of the most talented people have always had an urge to rebel against the boundaries and other conceits of a discipline.

We believe in the disciplines-- that is, the institution does and we accept that.  And we rebel against them because they are silos too.  We know that university life is dominated by the disciplines because universities and the people at them are forever struggling with how to create "inter-disciplinary" experiences and "cross-disciplinary" course work.  How to bust out: no one's ever really solved that problem.

Well, here comes blogging.  And not to get too cute about it, but blogging has a discipline to it, too.  How far is it, really, from "always link" to "only connect?"  What do the big disciplines think about blogging and the Internet?   Should we tell them what's happening?  Do the disciplines care if some stray academics are blogging up a storm?  (And why are some disciplines so over-represented?  I bet you have your theories about that!)

Suffering from their own link death for a long time

We know there are all kinds of academics doing it.  (Just look at Crooked Timber's List, organized by--well, what else?--discipline.) But we don't know what it means that academics can now blog-- especially, what it means for work in the academic disciplines, which have been suffering their own link death for a long time.  Students of the modern research university--and Stanford, the host campus, is one of those--sometimes call it "the iron law of the disciplines."  It's a way of saying they always win out, in the end, no matter what comes along.

So along come the bloggers, and the new Republic of Letters they call the blogosphere.  Does it even make sense to blog within a discipline?  Does disciplinary training help you blog?  Or is the discipline what you overcome in order to blog and blog well?   Is there something in the act of blogging that forces the blogger to address a broader public, or is that just a conceit?

Anyway, this a session about blogging and academic life with a third term, the disciplines (including your discipline) as point of departure.  And there will be more departures, more points, before BloggerCon meets and at the event.

Tell me what you think of these questions and my rough sketch of the puzzle.  We'll take it from there.  I'm Jay Rosen.  I write this weblog and I have a PhD.  Been an academic since 1980.  I'll be your moderator.  I did it once before. 

# Posted by Jay Rosen on 10/6/04; 11:19:08 PM - Comments [0] -- Trackback [0]

Two sessions, opening and closing the conference.

At the National Anthem session we sing a song. Seriously. Then we have a discussion about something that's of interest on November 6. It's not so important what is discussed, rather how it is discussed. This sets an example to make sure all the discussions have some kind of consistent quality.

I explain the groundrules, as outlined in the Newbies document.

It always goes really fast, and then when we're ready we all go to the first session, to talk about Podcasting and why we love it so much.

The Fat Man Sings

When I first spec'd this session it was The Fat Lady Sings, but then Betsy Devine pointed out that I'm actually a man (or something like that, my memory isn't so good, but Betsy was involved in some way).

Anyway, yes I do sing, not very well, andI don't lip-synch.

Then we talk about what we learned, and what we want to do at the next BloggerCon.

At the last one we decided we needed to welcome Newbies more, resulting in Rebecca MacKinnon's Blogging for Newbies session.

Then we say tearful goodbyes, gurgling sounds are made, and then we go to dinner!

# Posted by Dave Winer on 10/5/04; 8:26:55 AM - Comments [0] -- Trackback [1]

Welcome to “Blogging Evangelism 101,” led by the ultimate non-techie. This session isn’t just for newbies. It’s also for veteran techies for whom blogging has become a way of life, but who are getting sick of explaining what a blog is to people who have never heard of one, or to people who are dismissive of blogs without really understanding what they are. It’s a support session for people who could use some help spreading the gospel to non-technical blog-skeptics in their workplaces and communities.

So a person or group has the urge to communicate, or to get a message out. Why should they blog, rather than set up some other kind of website or start a listserv or chatroom?

For those who are completely new to blogging (and I hope there will be a few at Bloggercon), we can point you to the range of blogging tools and techniques out there, with some advice about which ones are most accessible to non-technical people, and how to get started.  For people who recently started blogging, this is the place to get answers to all those questions you and I would be embarrassed to ask geniuses like Dave. I’ve asked plenty of dumb questions since I started blogging in January. Let’s share our experiences and learn together.

For people who are trying to get their companies, departments, organizations, families and communities to blog, we’ll brainstorm about strategies for approaching non-technical blog-skeptics…or the lazy and apathetic.  I hope we’ll have some people in the room who’ve won over their workplaces or communities and gotten them to blog – either internally or publicly. I’d like to share experiences about what turned people on to blogging and what turned people off.  Are there some kinds of groups and projects that really lend themselves to blogging and others that just don’t?

There are lots of civic, non-profit and activist organizations out there with static websites – many with valuable information on them that the public ought to know about – that don’t get noticed because nobody can find them. How do you convince them that they should be blogging if they want to get noticed? I’ve been telling people who work for non-profit activist organizations that they can save a lot of money by having a blog rather than hiring somebody to set up and run a website for them, AND they’ll get a much better Google ranking with a blog than with a static website. Problem is, if they’ve already got a website and a webmaster, somebody’s job may be threatened. How do you deal with this? How do you deal with IT departments that don’t want non-techies messing with their organization’s web content?

Finally, there’s the fear that blogging will cause an organization or group to lose control over its image, and that it will turn into a “free-for-all.” How do you convince people to let go of this fear?  What groups or companies have been most successful at overcoming resistance and fear, and why?

# Posted by Rebecca MacKinnon on 9/30/04; 9:34:24 PM - Comments [5] -- Trackback [3]

B-Con3 happens just four days after the November 2 election...and even if the Supreme Court is still trying to adjudicate the decisions of all those electronic voting machines, we will have plenty to discuss in terms of weblogs and politics.

This is the year that was: the campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry, the ghost of Howard Dean, the misadventures of Dan Rather, the clout of Daily Kos and Instapundit. Blogs rerouted the flow of political money and information, opened communication and redesigned organizations.

As for actually driving votes, we'll see what that first Tuesday in November shows us. What did blogs really accomplish, and what did we think they might do that they didn't?

There are important stories at other levels of politics, too. Blogs and related strategies are part of the political toolkit in elections from the Register of Deeds contest in my North Carolina county to the highest-profile state-wide races. Let's get specific, name names, count votes and volunteers and hits and comments and cash, figure out what it was that we just witnessed.

But as we sketch the landscape so recently traversed, we will also be looking at where local and national politicos might go next. That's the big story at all levels of the game.

This session won't just be about post-mortems -- we should develop a sense of how the next campaigns (which will have already started) will play out online.

In 2004 we saw version 1.0 of weblog politics. In coming campaigns, blogs and bloggers will be expected to deliver results.

We can help define some of the expectations, limitations, and possibilities for weblogs in future campaigns -- in your town next year, your congressional district and perhaps a Senate race in your state in 2006, and back on the national stage in the race for the White House 2008.

# Posted by Ed Cone on 9/29/04; 11:57:50 PM - Comments [6] -- Trackback [0]

A day is coming when I'll have 10,000 feeds instead of the 915 I'm currently reading (I'd guess that the average blog reader follows 50 to 100 feeds, based on anecdotal evidence of talking with other bloggers). Actually, the number of bloggers I read is much higher than 915 thanks to group blogs and services like Feedster, Pubsub, and Technorati.

I'm not the only one struggling with information overload. Larry Larsen, multimedia editor at the Poynter Institute for for Media Studies has written several times about his struggles to keep up with reading a lot of news:

1) Zero second news
2) 1,000 headlines in 460 days

Larry isn't alone. I've met lots of bloggers and journalists who are struggling to keep up with the larger and larger amount of great content that's being published every day to the Web (Technorati's Dave Sifry reports that they are seeing 15,000 new blogs per day. Even if only .01% of these are "great blogs" that means a huge increase in great content every day.)

BloggerCon is for people who are actually writing blogs, so I'm trying to get in the shoes of a "normal" blogger, if such a thing exists.

Most "normal" bloggers don't even use an RSS News Aggregator yet. Assuming that each blog has an average of five readers, that means there's 20 million people out there reading blogs. Are there 20 million people using RSS News Aggregators? Not even close.

So, those of us who are reading lots of RSS feeds are ahead of the curve. What are we learning? How are we becoming more efficient so we can keep up?

Someone asked me the other day "why don't you just build a few search queries and delete the rest of your feeds?" I thought about it, but I enjoy the random weird stuff that people blog about. Search queries will only bring back the equivilent of purified sugar. Sweet, yes, but not that nutritious.

It's why I keep my link blog. It helps me think about everyone of the approximately 3000 items that cross my Tablet PC's screen every evening. "Is this something my readers need to know or would like to know?" I ask myself.

Watching that many feeds I've found ways to become more efficient. But I'm not efficient enough, so I want to talk with other people who are news junkies about how they consume large amounts of content. I remember working the Associated Press wire machine in college. When OJ was found "not guilty" several hundred stories crossed my screen in just 30 minutes. How do you keep up with that kind of news flow and deliver something to your readers that's useful?

How do you keep your sanity?

What else would you like to discuss at a session about how to handle the information overload?

Oh, and we haven't even started thinking about the latest "podcasting" craze. It's impossible to listen to more than a few hours of audio or video every day (while you can read a LOT more text). This trend to audio blogging will make it far less likely that you'll consume content from a broad set of people.

So, to wrap it up, here's an outline:

1) Keeping up with feeds. State of the art in News Aggregators and more.
2) Services that'll help you find the best stuff. You know, Feedster, Pubsub, Technorati, etc.
3) Linkblogging discussion.
4) Keeping up with the audio and video blogs that are popping up faster than mushrooms in springtime.
5) What do we need for a future of 10,000 or more feeds per person?

If this doesn't sound interesting, let me know what you'd like to see discussed.

# Posted by Robert Scoble on 9/29/04; 11:47:44 AM - Comments [9] -- Trackback [4]

Dave asked me to explore this topic for the next Bloggercon, and in thinking about it, I see a big open, interesting question around both philosophical issues as well as practices specific to online activity. I need to first think first about the ways people treat each other, the kind of respect and consideration we enjoy from people we respect and consider that underlay core values. I then thought about why the web is different and how we might carry our values around with us online, because of it's not often so obvious how to carry these values in our online relationships. Lists follow, and I hope to get some help understanding the question and the qualities of these values.

Things we might value in communities or consider in some way to be qualities a good citizen might have: - nodding hello to people and their contributions to the community - allowing people their human foibles - holding certain values above personal or financial gain - being honest - being generous - keeping the commons well - not polluting each other's private space - taking care with those less fortunate and considering the ideas, not the person, in critical evaluations about thoughts so as not to personally attack - passing on knowledge and skills to those who are newer - defending other's basic rights - participating in the community

We enjoy these values in communities, regardless of whether they are online or in real space. I think what is key in considering core values on the web then, is how do they manifest in practice online? What is special about the internet? Does the internet make interactions that are easily abused (spam) therefore push us to other ways of interacting (email -> RSS feeds)? Have we come to see certain behaviors as good for the web community and the blogosphere? Here are some practices I practice or see others using: - communicating in ways that nod hello, like a blogroll or mention of some kind, because of their work, contributions, creativity, etc. - linking out to those whose work or ideas we are referencing, building on or quoting in some in some way (see this post on the rule of links) - publishing and creating things that enrich the community and iterate us closer to the truth - keeping trollish and other destructive behavior minimized - balancing controls or restrictions on the use of ideas, methods and expressions between those who create and the commons - passing on what we've learned about technology, the web and the blogosphere - participating in the community by contributing knowledge, tools and information, and supporting those who do

Why do I care about this? Because I think that sharing our understanding of core values might make it easier to come to some common understanding of practices and behaviors, to facilitate communication and keep a healthy commons. I don't believe this list is exhaustive, and want to hear from the community about the kinds of practices that demonstrate or encourage core values of the web. I want to think more about how and where these values might develop into behaviors and why we need them, and what we can do to make online activity more reflective of healthy offline values. Please leave your comments and suggestions here.

I want to iterate on suggestions from commenters and blogger's posts on what values there are, and then discuss how and why these values and practices have evolved, and are valuable, viable, and why they exist.

Thanks, mary hodder

# Posted by mary hodder on 9/28/04; 1:21:42 AM - Comments [4] -- Trackback [2]