Tribe Blogocracy

Oliver Willis, whose site is linked here from BW and vice-versa, had been experimenting with Snap to show quick snapshots of the sites he linked for his posts. Robert Scoble uses this too.

Today Willis asked his readers whether to keep or ditch Snap. Most of us, including yours truly, advised him to ditch it. Previews are OK, but sometimes they get in the way, especially in small print, so I'd rather just click directly from the link.

He did.

That's listening to your readers.

JRE does that too on his site. Some guy on the Bivings Report gave a review of JohnEdwards.com, and while snarking Edwards for his youthful looks, complained about seeing one of the plans, on the issue of healthcare, on the homepage. What the reviewer didn't know is that is what the bloggers wanted and said so on Edwards blog. Of course, I had get my 2 comments in about that.

Unfortunately, since my technical skills are about 180 degrees from Willis, Scoble, or the webmasters at johnedwards.com, I cannot provide the same tribe blogocracy they can or will. But I appreciate those who do.

Benny and the Geeks

During my winter break last week, I went on a whirlwind trip to Iowa. I was one of 10 bloggers who was invited (or confirmed) to a "Blogger Sit-Down" with Presidential candidate John R. Edwards before the Town Hall meeting in Des Moines.

I had read the night before that Robert Scoble was going to be on the first legs of the announcement tour with Edwards. So, when he and others, such as Matt Gross, the Edwards campaign Online communications director appeared in the room where we were supposed to wait, I was thrilled to meet them. Little did I know a Lockernome, Jake Ludington, would be in attendance.
The 1st pic is of Jake Ludington in the background filming the "sit-down" with JRE, who is answering a question about his chances against a home pol, Gov. Tom Vilsack.


In this 2nd shot, Robert is the "Ken Doll" that Maryamie referred to last week on her myspace blog. I told Robert he was one of my tech heros, mainly because of his book, Naked Conversations, which happens to be in the Business and Economics Library where I work. The book is about business blogs and their importance..if they are set up in the way that customers and potential customers can truly get information from companies about their products and services, with a social angle to them. Why social and not just business speak? Because blogs are linked and are like conversations. I would argue though Scoble's not plastic; definitely down to earth.


Another Geek: John Edwards. Yes, he announced his candidacy on YT. He told a group of bloggers in a conference call before the YT posting what his campaign themes would be before officially announcing the next morning in NOLA. I know: I heard about it myself.


No, Edwards doesn't type his own blogs, but in Scoble's interview posted in the past 24 hours, Edwards says has someone typing his words verbatim when doing a live blog on Kos or JRE08. But look at this pic on the right, as he is answering my question about Russia engaging the Iranians about nuclear weapons: his shoes aren't brand new.



As someone at the JRE08 blog blurted about this pic of JRE:

Notice the soles of his shoes, proof of in touch with reality in my book. This man walks the walk.

A geek, an expert on political communications that I mentioned earlier, was Matt Gross, who was in the press section next to me, and patiently awaiting providing JRE with a question from a blogger who is watching the TH event via a live stream. I snapped a quick one of him. My view: it was not a town hall; it was a event of 1500-2500 political concert goers as the lights were bright, amplified, and great lead-in and denouement music, which included Mellencamp's "Our Country".


Other Geeks: NCDem Amy, who was one of the CJ's traveling with JRE in NOLA and Iowa. She's great. I've been blogging with her for 3 years, and it was our first time to meet. Hope it's not our last.

For a total roundup of the Announcement tour by Philgoblue, go here.






To borrow/substitute words from Sir Elton John and to imagine his music of "Bennie and the Jets", 1973 hit:

"Oh, they're weird and they're wonderful,
Oh, and Benny, she's really keen
On John Reid Edwards, and his walking shoes
You would have not read this in a magazine
Oh-Oh...Benny and the Geeks.

Benny..bennae..and the Geeks... "

Sigh..I'm a geek girl wannabe...but I'm happy to be in the company of the true geeks and bloggers.

Update: The Scobleizer has posted all of his videos on John Edwards08 blog. Here's the one with the Iowa bloggers (and I'm one of the interviewees) from the Scoble Show.

Matt Gross will be profiled into tomorrow's News-Record. Click the link for a peak.


Onward...

Podtech's Robert Scoble Interviews John Edwards

As reported last week, Robert Scoble was invited to follow Presidential 2008 John Edwards around, film him, interview him, etc. It looks like it was done on the plane enroute to Reno, but I'm not totally certain. The first part is in film, the other is in audio as the battery power died on the film recorder.

Most of the conversation is about the social media and why Edwards feels strongly about it. Why: to have a bottom-up democracy, and to give others a voice in the course of change.

Yes, Edwards admits that he has someone help type when he blogs because Edwards is a lousy typist.

http://media.podtech.net/media/2007/01/PID_001691/Podtech_senator_john_edwards_ipod.mp4

Go here for entire post.

More l8tr....

JRE Buzz (37): Blogger Sit Down in Iowa

Greetings BW readers,
The last few days have been and will continue to be a whirlwind for John Edwards, who announced his candidacy yesterday in NOLA. Only press and citizen journalists were at the announcement, with the exception of some of the residents and One Corps New Orleans.

Edwards is granting quite a bit of access to bloggers as he considers this campaign (his words from the announcement on Thur) a grassroots and netroots effort. The following YT was done by NCDem of the OAC.


One of the exciting moments for this blogger was to drive to Des Moines to see Edwards address a town hall meeting of 1o00, possibly 1500 or more, depending on who reported on it. But before the town hall portion, local bloggers and myself were invited to a petite tete a tete "bloggers sit-in". This was an opportunity to say hello ask Edwards questions. Jake Ludington, originally from Iowa and visiting for the holidays, is one of those Lockergnome guys and an attendee at this gathering. He captured a pretty good chunk of the conversation here. I hope Mitch Radcliffe is reading all of these accounts. After all, it was his idea to have a CJ or professional blogger on the back of the bus to capture the behind the scenes of a politician.

Yes, you see me very very briefly trying to sit down after shaking hands with John Edwards. To Edwards' left is my pal and OAC blogger, Jackie R, who was obviously very interested in what Edwards had to say.

My question was (and you can hear it on the video better than I can repeat verbatim) was about Edwards' foreign travels and the CFR report he wrote with Jack Kemp (in which Edwards finished my thought--"you mean Russia") and if it was possible to have the Russians at the table to help engage Iran. In short, Edwards didn't think so since Putin was moving away from democracy in Russia.

Other folks at this meeting included Robert Scoble, who works for Podtech and is travelling around on the plane with JRE, but Podtech is picking up his tab otherwise. He's one of my favorite geeks, and we had a nice conversation about the movement towards electronic public engagement, and I told him about some of the projects I've been working on at work as well as my own place here. I will post a picture I had taken with him later as I'm still in Iowa and will need access to my own computer to load into one of my plog accounts.

Scoble and I also talked about his experiences with some of the NC bloggers at the Converge South conference a couple of months ago. He said it was definitely like being in an old southern neighborhood, and one could see how politicians were born and bred out of that environment.

This was Scoble's first foray into political vlogging.

One thing I was not aware of until later was that not all of the bloggers were necessarily Edwards supporters at this blogger sit down. But I'm hoping one by one they will be won over, as I have been.

I also caught up with fellow bloggers NCDem and Chuckles, who were the CJ's travelling with Edwards' entourage for the first leg of the announcement tour. Jackie and I gave them a ride to their hotel and had dinner with them. Lots of war stories they were telling about their adventure, but it really was an adventure for them. Chuckles told me that Ezra Klein was his roommate in NOLA.

Updates forthcoming. Signing off from Hawkeye land.

More buzz l8tr...

JRE Buzz (36): Edwards Workin' It in NOLA

This is a picture of John Edwards, in coordination with the NAACP who asked 30 middle school kids to help dig out a house owned by Oreila Tyler in the Ninth Ward, that was posted by NCDem a few minutes ago on the One America Committee site.

If you wish to join the conversation, click here.

NCDem and Chuckles, who another CJ with her, report that JRE will be returning to the Ninth Ward tomorrow, but he didn't say what he would be doing then.

Philgoblue has posted an excellent diary at OAC and at the Daily Kos about the Edwards' Announcement tour. It lists the things and events JRE has been involved in since 2004.

Robert Scoble has a great post about "you" politics and John Edwards here. He claims he'll be down there in the 24 hours. We'll see.

Update: Pics by Charles Dharapak from the AP.

Stay tuned....