Monday, October 6, 2003

Of and By BloggerCon: Participatory Journalism I didn't get to as much of BloggerCon as I'd hoped, just the last afternoon. But, heck, these were bloggers... There are enough reports on the event to fill in frosty autumn nights for a month. Meanwhile, across campus, Harvard's Nieman Reports has just published its own article on blogging and its relationship to journalism. (Downloadable PDF version, or hard copy.) Back to BloggerCon, here are some of the accounts of the weekend on my already overwhelming reading list: Jay Rosen and Chris Lydon both focusing on the Saturday appearance of Len Apcar, Editor-in-Chief of the New York Times on the Web, among other notables. Heath Row covering the community discussion live. Jay again and Esther Dyson each provided general conference notes from Saturday. I love Esther's title, "the attention divide." After hitting  multi-day conferences in two states on one weekend (IVLA was the other), and finding that I'd missed a third event related to my research, I want to start searching for blogs about procrastination and Attention Deficit Disorder. I'll start my own on that combined topic if I can just stop putting off the idea, or getting distracted... Back to BloggerCon, see Dan Bricklin for an over-the-shoulder photo-blog look at the weekend. (What is this about software guys who turn out to be fine photographers?) I'm glad I asked that question... It reminded me to find Philip Greenspun for even more blog entries from the weekend, and the discussion comments he's great at attracting... Yes, as Philip reports, someone did ask why they should bother to blog. In effect that's the question the whole weekend was about -- are weblogs a tool for democracy, a First Amendment force to be reckoned with, part of the problem (or part of the solution) for modern journalism, a quirky hobby, a way to make a living, or just a fad? In fact, Dave Winer was already planning next year's BloggerCon on Sunday while demonstrating OPML at the wrapup session. (I'll add to this after I've done more catching up.) 3:03:39 PM

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