Missed potential at the DNC

Cam Barrett thinks the
convention blogging could have been a great deal more directed as well as more participatory. He was consulted early on but apparently most of his suggestions were not acted on.

'We the Media' book party

Brian Dear has some photos and a brief write up from Dan Gillmor’s Book Release Party.

johnkerry.com

Seems worth noting that it almost doesn’t seem worth noting that Kerry plugged johnkerry.com in his acceptance speech. Was a time, that would have seemed a novel thing.

Open source anarchy

Alan at The Command Post did a little local reporting around an anarchist protest today:

Here’s something else I found interesting: the protest was not organized … it just emerged from the morning ether. Seems there’s a local organization that was giving out free breakfast and dinner to people in from out of town to protest, and it was at this breakfast that the assorted anarchists, Greens, and Radical Cheerleading Squad members ginned up their event.
So there you go: Open-source protesting.

Rerminds me of the time anarchists rioted on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley, after flooding into San Francisco for an anarchists convention, which sounds like an oxymoron to me. Do they call the place to order? Who decides who gets to speak when? Do they have their own process, a sort of Roberts Rules of Disorder?

Dvorak slams con bloggers

Film at 11. But at least now that Dvorak is himself a blogger, it means that he too must suck.

Squeaky wheel gets the juice

Coincidence or response to my gripes, it doesn’t matter which, but the three blogs featuring most of my convention blogging have finally been added to the Convention Bloggers website, yielding 130 additional readers in the last half day (at this moment – updated stats at the RFB referrer rankings page at Salon).
Most of my traffic has come from photos of Atrios and Kos, respectively, with Kevin Drum readers coming in droves on Tuesday and wingnuts flooding in today to gawk at libruls and mock their lack of diversity, or bitchiness, or something. Who is Allah Pundit, anyway?

I am quoted accurately, for once

Scot Peterson of eWeek interviewed me on Monday and filed a thoughtful report today: Bloggers Make Their Presence Felt at DNC.
In stringing together my quotes, I think he was forced to manufacture some connecting words, and the result is a somewhat awkward rush of words that nonetheless reasonably represents my motormouth way:

Perhaps the most useful part of the bloggers’ presence at the DNC is the ability to put a face with a name to bloggers who are used to living only online. One is Christian Crumlish, author of the forthcoming book “The Power of Many: How the Living Web is Transforming Politics, Business and Everyday Life,” and creator of [among others] three separate blogs – The Power of Many, Radio Free Blogistan, and Edgewise.
Crumlish embraces the notion that blogs are here to stay, but not that they will be the end of mainstream journalism. “Blogs are a medium of influence more than a mass medium,” he said. “It’s interactive, reciprocal, what the street is thinking, a kind of collective unconscious. A sign that someone else is thinking what I’m thinking. I’m still a news junkie. I read the New York Times and other traditional media, [and don’t expect to] get breaking news from blogs.”
….
Most bloggers don’t make a living managing their blog, but do so as part of their real-world jobs or to augment their profession. As Crumlish explains, he’s a writer whose blogging “reinforces” what he does for a living.

Journalist at work!

Journalist practicing archaic form of notetaking involving making marks with graphite and wood on wood pulp held together with metallic ring bindings

Chivalry dead?

Alison Teal notices that the bloggers have been fiercely territorial about seating and vantage points in the blogger section, and that there seems to be a politeness differential across the generation gap(s):

There is a reserved section on the seventh floor for the bloggers, but I’ve stopped going there. The Internet has been a little sketchy and the floor is uncomfortable. All the desks are taken by the time I get there and to my surprise none of the twenty and thirty year olds are jumping up to offer an elderly woman their seat.
I spent the first night on the floor leaning against a makeshift desk leg, complaining loudly about my arthritis and aching back in vain. On the second night, the desks and chairs began to free up right before Theresa’s speech. Seriously. I guess the younger people thought she wasn’t going to have anything of interest to say. I’ve long been a fan and still think she has the most to say – and in five languages. So I’m sort of saying “shove it” to the floor of the blogging section, which makes posting a bit harder.

Perhaps it has to do with rock-concert mores. If you decide to go to the pre-convention parties while others station themselves in a seat, the others feel entitled to the seats they have staked out for themselves, at the cost of missing out on some of the free drinks and corporate pork.
Also, no matter how loudly Teal complained, I doubt it was louder than the crazy-making din that builds and builds all night, along with the temperature and the tempers of everyone trying to file their stories.
There also seems to be some kind of instant hierarchy among the supposedly egalitarian blogger set.
Some come early and grab the best seats and have sat in those best seats the whole time. Others come early and grab the other good seats (high chairs) on the above level.
The CNN/Technorati team (no credentialed blogger among them) always have about a quarter of the primo space locked up, or they give it magnanimously to people who arrive later, never “upgrading” those of us squeezed into the awful chairs. (Whine, whine.)
The rest of us squeeze into tiny stadium seats and then have to deal with nonbloggers and journalists and cameraman constantly squeezing through that tiny space, jostling our laptops, stepping on our cords and often yakking loudly.
That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t even go into the hall on Wednesday. Burn out and frustration. I watched Edwards speech from the Blogger Bash. I watched the rest of the speeches in various bars and other public spots earlier in the evening. I talked to a lot of noncredentialed people and locals. I knew I had to save up my energy for the last push tonight.
I do apologize for not giving up my hardwon seat on Tuesday night. Then again, I haven’t been in any airconditioned, premium, or “honored guest” suites, myself.

Not for sale, really?

Maybe for scoops this week, we should be paying close attention to the people who are both “real” journalists and “real” bloggers, people like Micah Sifry.
Speaking of whom, meeting Sifry (he and Dave each refer to each other as they’re their [spell much? –ed] “smarter brother”) has been one of the highlights of this event for me, only exceed I think by the pleasure of Tom Burka’s company – sometimes you meet people and instantly feel like you have always been friends.
Anyway, namedropping aside, Sifry, M. peels back the curtain to show us the untold story of what’s really going on at the convention.
Hmmm, didn’t see anything about analysis of corporate sponsors and other money sources on Fox, CNN, NBC, etc.