Second Chapel Hill bloggers meetup went well, with 11 of us gathered in the same corner of the Caffe Driade patio: Bernard Glassman, ae, Ruby Sinreich, Tim King, Corey Reece, Justin Watt, Dave Johnson, Anton Zuiker, Bora Zivkovic, Bruce Loebrich, Roy Kim and Karen Mishra. In our roundtable introductions, Bernard related how he was asked by NCI to create a blog that was “trenchant and interesting.” Roy briefly mentioned his tabulas.com effort, something I hope he’ll explain more thoroughly at a future meetup. Karen introduced herself as a j-school doctoral student interested in researching the local blogging community, and reported that Michael O’Connell gave a blogging101 presentation to a JOMC graduate seminar today (where none of the doctoral students reported being bloggers). Justin used a great round-about way to introduce himself, relating how he was in the grocery checkout line earlier in the day and when he glanced back, recognized a rock-n-roll singer, who coyly acknowledged Justin’s recognition of her (see Justin’s neatlinks mention of le tigre). Someday, he said, I’ll be in the checkout and someone will glance over and say, “Justinsomnia?” Ruby mentioned her mother recently started a blog because a family member was gravely ill; I started Zuiker Chronicles Online just before my grandfather, Frank the Beachcomber, passed away in 2000. A good friend of mine also recently started a blog for his family as a way to deal with the illness of a family member, and in Greensboro Jinni Hoggard is blogging about her cancer. Memo to journalists who want to use the pajamas reference in a story about blogging: write about how farflung families are brought closer together through blogging about illness. (You’ll have to mention Kaycee’s blog.) Corey told us he’s recently moved to Carrboro from Florida; he’s looking for a job to use his experience creating web applications for distance learning. (See Corey’s resume.) Bernard said he needs a graphic designer immediately. Brief discussion of cat blogging. Dave told us he’s the “blog evangelist” at Sun Microsystems, where he gets paid to develop his open source Roller blogware and promote blogging by more than 1000 employees. Then brief discussion about differences between blogs and wikis (personal and community, said Dave). Bernard asked about cross-posting between two or more blogs, I shared how my post today helped me understand I could combine my two blogs into one, and Dave mentioned Ben Hammersley’s crossposter for Movable Type. Next Bora explained Sid’s brainchild The Carnival of the Vanities, introduced his local version The Tar Heel Tavern and asked everyone to link to the Tavern and spread the word about submitting your two best posts about North Carolina. (Bora’s posting a comprehensive listing of all the varied blog carnivals. My god, Sid, what have you wrought?) Quote of the evening: “I’m a real carnival whore,” said Bora. Dave likened the blog carnival idea to a progressive dinner, and Bora offered that it’s like a potluck. I talked about how I edited an old post today and wondered what obligation I have to note that at the top of my blog. “Should I link back to that now-updated post or should I just leave it until Google searchers happen upon it, whereupon they’ll read the original posting and then see the edit?” Consensus seemed to be we should note any updates or edits. I had to leave at this point. Any report from the other attendess on the rest of the conversation? Post in comments, please. Thanks to those who attended. Chapel Hill Bloggers Meetup next meets Wed, March 2 at 6 p.m. at Caffe Driade. There will be a Raleigh/Cary Bloggers Meetup Tues, March 1 at 6 p.m. at The Teck Cyber Cafe. See details of both meetups in the menu at left. [Edit: Added Justinsomnia graph a two hours after the original post. Added link to Corey’s resume 2/24 4:47 p.m.]