event

BarCamp New Orleans 2008

Very cool event coming up, BarCamp New Orleans:

Let’s get a bunch of Gulf Coast geeks together and build something for someone who needs our help.

Maybe it’s time we do a BarCamp here in New Orleans. In addition to connecting digital folks, sharing what we know and what we’re working on, maybe we can pick a team project to do as well.

I’d like to find a struggling small business we could help immediately with a new site or enhanced Web services. Spend a weekend cranking as a team and launch the thing at the end of the weekend. We can get help from our friends everywhere with regard to code, design, ideas. Brains, we have them at the ready.

Date: February 16th and 17th, 2008

Where: Voodoo Ventures offices, 757 St. Charles Avenue, Suite 301

I won’t be able to attend, but the excellent Brian Oberkirch will be there. Also check out the video below for more details:

Catching up on the last two weeks: Ad Tech, BlogWorld Expo, Quigo & Yedda, WordPress iPhone plugin, Writers strike, and WSJ & Digg

Been traveling and just super busy the last couple of weeks, and started a bunch of posts that are still saved in draft.  So here is a wrap up of what I would have posted, and using a very John Paczkowski-like long headline 🙂

* Ad:Tech New York. Was in town for a few meetings, and a great dinner put together by Mike Hirschland (aka “VC Mike“). It was my first trip back to New York since I moved to San Francisco in July. My overall impression: every industry segment and media outlet is finally aligned to make the online ad world take a huge leap forward. Lots of smart people looking at significant ad dollars moving online and how best to capture them. Measurement will be key.

* I attended BlogWorld Expo in Vegas. I was impressed by the attendance and diversity of companies & speakers. It was also great to meet people in person that I had only emailed or Skype’d with previously (Shoutout to Karen & Dana of ContentRobot and John LoGioco of outbrain). Mark Cuban gave a great closing keynote, and our very own Matt Mullenweg was the opening keynote q&a session and interviewed here by webpronews. Lots of photos of the two day event on flickr.

* Good week to be an Israeli tech company. Quigo, founded by Yaron Galai, was purchased by AOL — congrats to Yaron & team ! Later in the week word spread that Yedda, a Y! Answers like service, also was purchased by AOL.

* On the WordPress front, the winner of the WordPress iPhone plugin challenge was announced. You can download the plugin here.

* The writers strike shows no signs of coming to an end. On how it might all shake out — Marc Andreessen has a superb post titled “Rebuilding Hollywood in Silicon Valley’s image“. A definite must-read.

* Great to see wsj.com and Digg working more closely together. Kevin Rose posted details on the Digg blog and TechCrunch has some thoughts too.

Webby Awards 2007 in NYC: thoughts

webby I was at the webby awards in downtown new york city the other night with a few colleagues, as our site, WSJ.com, was awarded in the Financial Services category.

It was a pretty interesting night. My quick thoughts, and some coverage.

– Rob Cordrey was hillarious ! His humor is definitely an acquired taste for some — but I thought he did a great job.

– Any event with the Beastie Boys is a big plus !

– Award shows usually showcase the content – be it movies, shows, music, etc. Not in this case. Not a single web site, advertising campaign,or any interactive piece of content was shown on the large screens.

– Great to get everyone organized at an event — but lacked a theme or a cause. With all the talent and smarts in the large hall, it was a missed opportunity to tackle something big.

– Limiting the acceptance speeches to 5 words was brilliant. In that vain, the best acceptance speech was from Mike Hudak of blip.tv in the broadband category. He turned to Rob Cordrey and said: “you’re much funnier on the daily show “ ( 7 words, but nobody was really counting )
Other coverage:

Vallewyag: Obituary The Webbys

I’ve vowed never to attend another Webby Awards for as long as I’ve been going to the show. After last night’s 2007 gala, it’s finally time to burn the bridges. The whole concept has always been slightly absurd: an Oscars-style show for an industry that has little glamor; with a nomination process that rewards organizations with good publicists, or faddish appeal, rather than outstanding achievement. But the revenue-hungry new owners of the Webbys, who took over from founder Tiffany Shlain, have sacrificed the awards’ redeeming quality: the quirky charm she brought.

Jason Schaeffer has his thoughts on the night.

The evening had an Oscar-esque aire…with a red carpet, swirlling paparrazi, candle lit tables and a multi media extravaganze. The event was quite long…..4+ hours in total…but the mandatory five word speaches were amusing (and often risque) at times. It was not a crowd I anticipated attending….very corporate..alot of suits and a formal affair…but then again, NYC always seems to be stiff when I am visiting. Probably spent too much time in SF.

Jane Kratochvil, who is an unbelievably talented photographer, captured some photos from the event: