So, Doc Searls’ keynote was absolutely excellent. He spoke about the importance of informations, how calling what we write in blogs “content” does it …
… a disservice and is wrong, about attempts to censor and control information over the internet, and all of it was very informative.
After his speech, I said hi to Robert Scoble, who was sitting right in front of me. He was rushing to leave (I think to the airport), but it was still cool to finally meet the man. I then realized that sitting down the table from him was Marc Canter, who I knew a little from the Marqui thing earlier in the year. So I said hi, and he invited me to this dinner a whole bunch of people were attending.
The dinner was at Keens Steakhouse on 36 Street, just off Broadway. The place had a great ambience, with pipes (smoking, not plumbing) lining the entire ceiling and display cases with pipes used by Babe Ruth, Theodore Roosevelt, Joh Barrymore, and many other celebrities. There was a nice big red couch in front, that I’m sure Scoble would have enjoyed, and of course, the obligatory moose head. Marc knew plenty about the place, having a bit of history with it, and told some great stories.
All told, there were somewhere between 20-30 people at dinner, including Marc, Doc Searls, some people from IDG (who picked up most of the tab), Greg Reinacker (who I had heard on a panel a little earlier) and a large bunch of interesting people. The topics kept changing, from crime (not so much in San Franscisco, improving in New York) to Microsoft (evil, but great at what they do) to Google (in their own little world). There was discussion of key players in the industry, PR persons, and plenty of people trying to explain what was great about their company. Only one other person seemed to be from New York.
So, I had a great time at dinner, and really have to thank Marc and Doc for giving everybody a great time. Some people who have interesting blogs are boring in person, but these guys are actually more funny and interesting.
What else happened at the conference? Well, I went to the Google table and had a chat with their representatives about AdSense for feeds, and came off feeling that this product was nowhere near ready. It doesn’t support anything but Blogger and Movable Type. Apparently, the code Google created isn’t any standard code that can just be dumped in; its code specific to the blogging platform, so don’t expect a lot of adoption for a while. Considering that (1) users of Blogger probably don’t need it (2) WordPress is hugely popular (3) most RSS feeds aren’t coming from blogging software, but from company websites that want to keep people updated and (4) no news organization uses blogging software, so they can’t use Google, this is going to be a problem.
The reps told me they reduced the size of the ads to 468 pixels in width, which is an improvement, but still not good enough. In a two or three-pane view, the portion with the blog posts can be quite small. This means the ad can be wider than the window, forcing vertical scrolling. It is very annoying, especially considering these are text ads. Since they are just text, can’t Google find a way that the text wraps? You’d think. While the Google people were knowledgeable and friendly, the product looks far too beta for widespread adoption at this point.
That’s all. Now I have to decide who was the funniest person:
- The guy who didn’t like the term “podcasting” and said “Why not call it Paulcasting?”
- The guy who interrupted a conversation in the pressroom to get a soda and said to his colleague “BRB”
- The guy who fell asleep and started snoring during one of the last sessions
Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.
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