2006.09.15
The Bay Area Is (Not) Talking
In June, 2005 I went to an event hosted by KRON inviting Bay Area bloggers to talk to them about blogging and how they could get involved. It was a pretty good event, even if I only knew Uncle Roger (met him in person that day!) and didn’t much enjoy the blogger posturing I saw everywhere.
There was a promise then to build out a website that would do a couple things. It would blog about things going on in the Bay Area. It would have an aggregator of other Bay Area blogs. It would have a page with an index (blogroll, sort of) of bloggers in the Bay Area. I thought this was a brilliant idea, and I jumped on board.
The site was built and called The Bay Area is Talking. As promised, it’s main content was a blog, the aggregator is there on the side, and index (Hey! I just noticed I’m not there anymore!). Unfortunately, before too long the primary mover in this effort (on the part of KRON) became overwhelmed with other things. Brian Shields is this man and he did a pretty decent job of keeping things up and posting articles. To make up for this he invited other Bay Area bloggers to fill in the gap. Then those guys trickled and fizzled out.
I always hated the aggregator, partly because there was nothing there I was interested in and partly because the small bloggers were never there (can anyone say clique?), but I did love the idea of the site.
What happened? Loss of interest? Lack of support from KRON? Lack of feedback that disheartened those who built and ran the site? Well, regardless of what did or didn’t happen, I bid it a fond farewell until I hear they are back on and living. *sigh*
5 Comments Categorized: geek san francisco thoughts
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5 Responses to “The Bay Area Is (Not) Talking”
- Jordan says (September 16th, 2006 at 00:21:10 )
That KRON event is where I ran into you… I jotted down the names of all the other bloggers that were kind enough to talk with me and have been reading many of their sites since. Thanks for writing.
- douglas says (September 16th, 2006 at 00:57:39 )
And I follow a few of the people I met there, too. Are you going to enable commenting on your site some day?
- CT says (September 19th, 2006 at 12:07:36 )
I wonder about the success rate of such blogger meet-and-greets. When I was living in the “other” Bay Area (Tampa Bay), critical mass led to a couple of Tampa Bay Bloggerfests. But they fizzled out in short order, taking a couple of blog with them. I think another gathering developed many months later, but I don’t know if it was sustaining.
I mused about the chilling effects when having to confront electronic “pals” as actual flesh-and-blood people; it’s often a letdown. Maybe that’s part of what leads to this deflation.
- douglas says (September 19th, 2006 at 13:03:52 )
Meeting people in person I’ve first met online hasn’t been too big of a deal. Yet. Probably because I have few expectations that they’ll be like their online personalities. Especially the ones that work so hard to create their online personality… their writing becomes a character easier maintained digitally than physically.
It could have been one of the contributing factors, this meeting in person of so many individuals. I don’t know. I’m still naive yet optimistic about the much of the web. :)
- CT says (September 20th, 2006 at 06:12:01 )
There is that schizo split between (apparent) online persona and real-life personality. Maybe you expect a difference, but actually coming face to face with it is another story. For instance, for the TB Bloggerfests (of which I attended neither), I got back a couple of low-level horror stories; it seems a few of the blogging geeks weren’t accustomed to being out in public, interacting with girls, etc. Stereotypical behavior, I know. All of which conspired to do Bloggerfest in, I guess.
On the other hand, one long-term romantic relationship sprouted from it (that ultimately died away too). So you never know.
