A weekly meeting for people interested in weblogs, newbie to guru.
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We’ll meet at the Berkman Center next on Thursday, July 29, at 7 pm.
Addendum: Quite a few people from Berkman came to the meeting (proof). It was mostly social–no agendas. Lisa took photos.
Reminder: Blog Meetup Wednesday (7/21) in Lieu of Thursday’s (7/22) Meeting …
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If you’ve contacted j during the last few weeks via her profile and have not received a response, please try again. j’s e-mail problems are sending e-mail from that profile into Spamfilterland. If you need to contact the blog group, using the comments could be the best way to do it.
She’s working on resolving those problems, but it may take a while. There doesn’t seem to be a way to edit her profile on this blog to change her e-mail address, which would be the obvious thing to do, and because of a bug with the way membership and e-mail addresses work on these Harvard-hosted blogs, creating a new profile won’t work.
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Members of our group are interested in connecting with bloggers who are coming into the area to cover the Democratic National Conventnion (DNC) and are willing to serve as resources for those of you who may have questions or need some assistance while you’re here.
We’d like to do something to gather bloggers together, but without knowing what might suit people’s schedules, it’s difficult to make plans. If you are going to be in the area and would like to try to meet some of us, comment below.
Addendum 7/19: Okay, well, you don’t really *have* to be sexy to meet up with us. It was just a title someone at Thursday’s meeting suggested to get people’s attention. We’ll meet with butt-ugly bloggers, too. We just want to network with other bloggers coming into the area.
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We are meeting on Thursday, July 15, at 7 pm at the Berkman Center as usual. This week’s meeting has not been canceled.
Proposed agenda:
No Webcast, but IRC will be available.
Notes:
Construction note: There might still be a fence around Harkness Commons preventing access to the Berkman Center via the Harvard Law School yard. It may be possible to cut through Pound Hall to get to a parking lot near the Berkman Center. For those coming from Harvard Square, it might be easier to travel along Massachusetts Avenue to the Berkman Center. map
Like past and future agendas, if you have an item you’d like on the agenda, comment, get blogging privileges from Jay , or contact him or the other j.
At the last meeting, everyone agreed to skip the Thursday, July 22nd meeting in favor of attending the Wednesday, July 21st Boston Blog Meetup. Meetup.com hosts a website for people interested in hundreds of topics to plan in-person gatherings. The Boston Blog Meetup has never really taken off so some of us have adopted it. We needed 3 people to vote for a venue to make sure Meetup.com didn’t cancel the event and ended up with over 20.
WHO: Boston Bloggers
WHAT: Boston Blog Meetup
WHEN: Wednesday, July 21st @ 7pm
WHERE: Marche Movenpick (inside the Prudential Center), 800 Boylston Street, Boston
COST: The restaurant is a sort of international cafeteria — ala carte style. Each person pays for their own food/drink. You can expect to pay $5+.
DIRECTIONS:
If you drive, park in the Prudential Garage and bring in your parking ticket for $7 parking. It’s $20-$28 without validation. Otherwise, take the Green Line to the Pru’s stop on the “E” Line.
For more information visit http://blog.meetup.com or
It looks like quite a few bloggers affiliated with our group will be doing some citizen journalism at the Democratic National Convention.
Vernica pointed out that political science graduate student Nate Paxton of Nate Knows Nada also has credentials. He blogs on Harvard’s server. (Thanks!)
Congratulations, bloggers!
Journalism professor Jay Rosen wrote a long piece about blogging the convention and bloggers getting their credentials.
Cyberjournalist is listing bloggers with credentials.
Dave Winer has set up a community site for blogging the DNC.
Adam Curry has a feed of bloggers covering the DNC.
Jessamyn West of librarian.net has a list of links to resources about Boston during the DNC, like MBTA information and where to find some wireless access on her blog for the DNC.
If anyone coming to the area would like to meet up with us while s/he’s in town, drop us a line. We plan to meet as usual on Thursday, July 29, conflicting with convention activities.
Addendum 7/19: Alex S. Jones of the Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government has a negative perspective on bloggers covering the convention. He writes, “But make no mistake, this moment of blogging legitimization — and temporary press credentials — doesn’t turn bloggers into journalists. … bloggers, with few exceptions, don’t add reporting to the personal views they post online, and they see journalism as bound by norms and standards that they reject. That encourages these common attributes of the blogosphere: vulgarity, scorching insults, bitter denunciations, one-sided arguments, erroneous assertions and the array of qualities that might be expected from a blustering know-it-all in a bar. … With the status conferred by convention credentials, blogging has arrived as an engaging, important new player in the information carnival. But should blogging displace traditional reporting and journalism, as some in the blogosphere predict it will, then the steak will have been swapped for the sizzle. It’s better to have both.” He does say some positive things about bloggers covering the convention. He recognizes that many people, journalists included, read blogs and consider them an important news source.
Addendum 7/22: Feedster has a feed for the Democratic National Convention.
Addendum 7/26: Here’s another list of bloggers covering the convention, including delegates who are blogging.
Proposed agenda:
At this meeeting, we will focus on what we want to do as a group next year. The list below are some ideas people have been talking about. If you would like to contribute to this list before the meeting on Thursday, please comment or see the note below about contacting j or Jay. Similarly, if you are unable to attend the meeting, but you have suggestions you would like to share, please comment below or contact one of the Jays. In true Jay-fashion, you could also blog on your own blog, but please let us know if you do to ensure that we see the post.
No Webcast
Notes:
Construction note: There might still be a fence around Harkness Commons preventing access to the Berkman Center via the Harvard Law School yard. It may be possible to cut through Pound Hall to get to a parking lot near the Berkman Center. For those coming from Harvard Square, it might be easier to travel along Massachusetts Avenue to the Berkman Center. map
Like past and future agendas, if you have an item you’d like on the agenda, comment, get blogging privileges from Jay , or contact him or the other j.
This Web page on the Manila Newbies site explains the macro that creates the print-friendly/text-only version of a Manila blog. The macro itself is: {printFriendlyLink ("Text of the link you would like to use")}. Insert this code with the text you’d like to have on your page in your Manila blog’s template to get a print-friendly/text-only version of your blog and its contents. The resulting page uses the Print-Friendly Template, an editable version of which is in the advanced preferences.
Don’t have plans for the 4th of July yet? Have plans and want to get out of them? Join us for dim sum or the fireworks from the Cambridge-side of the Charles River. j will be out there with her lobster hat on starting around 6 pm.
Addendum: Some of the bloggers are meeting at the Davis Square T stop’s College Avenue entrance at 5 pm before heading to the river. We will look for other bloggers at the entrance and on the inbound platform of the T station. The closest T stop to the spot on the Charles River bank is Kendall. Turn right on Memorial Drive and walk a few hundred feet.
Addendum 7/5: A few bloggers met along Memorial Drive to enjoy an evening of musical enchantment, bad duck jokes, and fireworks.
We’re sorry we missed Vernica. Some of the people rendezvousing at the T station at 5 pm canceled, so there was a slight shift in plans that didn’t make it to the blog.
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Join us for dim sum at Chau Chow City, 83 Essex Street in Chinatown, on Sunday, July 4th at 1:30 pm. Friends, significant others, and family members are welcome, too. Look for Sun or me.
South Station is the closest stop on the Red Line (and may be the closest subway stop). Chinatown is the closest stop on the Orange Line. There is a tiny parking lot very close to the restaurant that is not free. Street parking may be available a short walk away in the financial district. If you could let me know in advance if you plan to join us, that would be very helpful because when Sun and I get to the restaurant, we can put in a request for a table if we know how many are coming.
Dim sum is Chinese food that some people think is quite tasty. It’s often eaten for brunch. The Chau Chow City waitstaff roams the restaurant with carts filled with steamed foods, fried goodies, dumplings, soup, seafood, and assorted desserts. Customers select what to eat as the carts pass by. The food is often served in steamer containers with 2 or 3 items per container. Going with a group can work well because there’s more opportunity to share and try different items. It is possible to order from Chau Chow City’s menu.
Boston will be a little chaotic because of people coming in for the 4th of July celebration and Harborfest.
Look for me on the Cambridge-side of the Charles River at the celebration that evening.
Addendum 6/29: There’s a rumor circulating that the Dowbrigade might make an appearance at dim sum.
Addendum 7/3: Another rumor indicates we might be looking at photos of Ecuador.
Addendum 7/4: There was a good turnout for dim sum. Michael was there, but we got too busy talking and forgot to look at his Ecuador photos. Perhaps he can talk at a future blog meeting about his experience blogging from Ecuador.
