Trevor Cook: Bloggercon: the vendor problem

09 November 2004

Bloggercon: the vendor problem

There was a 'Dave Winer' moment over vendors spruiking there stuff in the sessions. Apparently Winer is famous for flaming people in these circumstances. I don't want to go into a blow-by-blow account, but I do think Winer's point about vendors needing to listen to users more is absolutely valid and important to the future of blogging.
A related point, which I made to a discussion leader, is that if you go to a media 'users' conference they talk almost exclusively about the implications of new technologies, with only a passing reference to the engineering details.
I thought there was still a bit too much geekiness at bloggercon, perhaps reflecting the new medium's infancy.
Bloggercon will come of age when the tools are seen as mere background information

9 Nov 2004 03:39:02

2 Comments

Hey Trevor, I'm bummed we couldn't meet. I was there for the morning sessions but was feeling terrible and had to leave early. Winer's Stalin-like crack down on the vendors was a little weird (awkward at the least), but I also get the idea that there’s a spirit he’s trying to engender with these conferences and you have to respect that. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to connect again at some point in the future…

Posted by: Mike Manuel | 09 November 2004 at 11:49 AM

Tevor:

Great seeing you at Bloggercon. We need to meet up again. Dave is Dave, vastly more good than bad, and he is remarkably talented and has a great heart. I wonder how many others could have gotten this kind of deal done.

Buzz

Posted by: Buzz Bruggeman | 13 November 2004 at 03:06 PM

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Blogging and money The 4th session I attended at bloggercon was on making money, which only confirmed that the vast majority of people blog for reasons other than making a living. The most convincing commercial reason is to engage with customers and other stakeholders in a way that is far more human than most marketing tools. This applies externally and internally and from one person shows to giant corporations. Though I do also see an emerging group of commentators, often jounos, who can be their own micro media company with largish readerships attracting livable amounts of advertising dollars.

Blogging, journalism and public relations After geeks, the next single largest group at bloggercon seemed to be current and former journalists using blogs to overcome the problems of traditional media. Problems like narrowness of viewpoint, arrogance, bullying, and a disturbing inability to meet even minimal standards of accuracy and fairness. It's not for nothing that the public has a low regard for the media. Yet, few of these journalist bloggers seemed to recognize that these very media flaws are a major reason for the existence of pr. Another major reason for pr professionals is that there is a lot more to effective communications than just...