The search for the ideal bloggers meetup location continues … This week, we got bumped from the Speakeasy sofa lounge — a group from UNC Hospitals had rented the space — so we went next door to Tyler’s and took up a few tables. Would have been a nice spot but for the stereo speaker directly above us, and that made Karen’s focus group less successful than she would have wanted it, I’m sure. For that, I’m sorry. Anthony Perry briefly joined us, and mentioned he’s working at Blogads with Henry Copeland. Henry’s looking to hire another team member, someone who’s looking for an entry-level position and willing to learn about blogs. Spread the word – get paid to work with blogs. Karen tried to get us to talk about whether bloggers are influential people in their communities and on the web. I talked about Moleskine notebooks and how a blog entry about them led to my purchase of one of the notebooks. That led to a discussion of word-of-mouth marketing. Justin suggested the blogs that are influential are tightly focussed, or niche blogs. Influence, he said, comes from expertise that you get through experience. Tim mentioned his one and only podcast was about buzz agents. A few of us at one end of the table talked about the satellite pictures now available through Google Maps. Attendees: Tim King, Brian Russell, Karen Mishra, ae, Corey Reece, Justin Watt, Sayan Chakraborty, Sri Kalyanaraman, Jackson Fox, Bora Zivkovic and mistersugar. My notes weren’t very good for the meetup this time. Damn noise. I’ll ask Karen for her notes on what she heard from us. Let this be another plea for your suggestions on a good meeting place for 15-20 bloggers to gather for a leisurely but engaging conversation. Wifi would be nice. Refreshments, too.