This afternoon at Les Blogs has had many of the characteristics you see in almost any kind of conference.
You know, it’s after lunch, after the time you’ve spent meeting new people, seeing people you already know, chatting, etc. So everyone’s just a bit jaded and a little tired. Now it’s nearly 6:30pm and things are getting towards their conclusion.
Whether people are a bit tired or not, there have been some highly interesting discussions this afternoon – on nano publishing and vertical blogging, the blog advertising market, and a great panel discussion on traditional media and what they’re doing. I hope to post some thoughtful-type commentary when I’m back in Amsterdam late tomorrow, rather than just simple reporting or quick comments.
A panel discussion on blogs in Iran, China and other parts of Asia is just concluding. This session gave some great insight into what’s going on in parts of the world that have significantly less freedoms of expression than we have in Europe, for instance.
Doc Searls is taking the stand now, so more later, probably once I’m back in Amsterdam. But one quick comment as I’m having a problem publishing this post so time for an additional note – Doc says all bloggers are journalists. A blog is a journal. And we all write, we don’t produce content.
An addition to the debate on blogger vs journalist or, more correctly, blogger vs professional journalist.
And, Doc says – the Cluetrain still hasn’t left the station yet. More later.
Do take a look at the photos on Flickr, by the way – over 500 there now.
One thing – the wi-fi here has been very erratic. I’m still showing an extremely poor signal, which is affecting posting this to the blog (I’m writing offline with ecto for Windows).
Tags:
- Technorati: lesblogs
- Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/lesblogs/
Sounds like you had fund there and worth the day trip down to Paris. I have yet to be at a Blogger conference where the Wi-Fi could feed a couple of dozen screens simultaneously. I prefere to make a distinction between diarists and story-tellers. Most blogs are a diary of a day (or a few hours) in that persons life. Did this, did that. A few tell us an engaging story and share some opinions which touch others.
Interesting re the wi-fi, Jonathan. There were at least two separate networks Loic had set up. Yet imagine everyone there trying to connect, which is what happened. Plus there was the chat channel as well as presenters showing blogs and sites on screen that meant they needed to go online. And, lots of people uploading their photos to Flickr during the day.
I don’t know what the bandwidth was, but I guess it should be no surprise that, overall, things were pretty slow!
You make an interesting distinction re diarists and story-tellers. If you take a look at the Technorati tag for Les Blogs, you’ll see posts galore that fall into both of the camps you mention. Plenty for every taste.