BlogTogether

A few key pages for BlogTogether use Instiki, but the major, built-in problems with that software have finally killed our pages (Triangle Bloggers Conference page, for one). So, I need you recommendations on a good wiki. Please post to the comments.

We’re back at Tyler’s/Speakeasy this week for a discussion about podcasting. Brian will lead the way. See you Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the back room of Tyler’s. And, looking ahead, here’s the meetup schedule for July: * No meetup the week of July 4. * Meet Wed, July 13 at 6 p.m. * No meetup the week of July 11. Instead, we’ll have our second teach-in Sat, July 23 from 12-3. * Meet Wed, July 27 at 6 p.m. I propose we all take a break in August (quite a few bloggers take the month off and don’t post to their sites), at least from meeting. Spend the time with your family and friends, and then we’ll regroup in September with a push to grow our community and put a bit more planning into the meetup agendas (and start thinking about the second annual Triangle Bloggers Conference).

Someone last week mentioned returning to Caffe Driade for the Chapel Hill bloggers meetup. I won’t be able to join you this week, but please meet at the regular time — 6 p.m. If you’re there late, be sure to check all around, and on the lower terrace, for the group.

Chapel Hill Bloggers Meetup, Wednesday 6 p.m. Let’s try a new location: WB Yeats Irish Pub, 306 W. Franklin St. The Business of Blogging, Thursday 6 p.m. at the Morrisville Chamber of Commerce. This is a panel discussion organized by the Triangle Interactive Marketing Association. I’ll be one of the panelists; Chapel Hill blogger and blogads maestro Henry Copeland will be another. We’ll be joined by Karen Mann of Tar Heel Blogwatch. And don’t forget the Tar Heel Tavern. Submissions to me by Saturday at 6 p.m., please.

I got a call from Allison Hager, a JOMC student interning at Charlotte Magazine. She’s working on a feature spread about blogs and blogging in Charlotte, and is interested in knowing if any of the banks or others businesses in the area are using or considering blogs. Post suggestions to the comments, please.

Saturday’s teach-in was a success: beautiful day, excellent facility, eager bloggers-to-be and patient and knowledgeable volunteers (thanks Ruby, Brian and Josh). Kirk Ross of the Independent was there to explore ways his news weekely can incorporate blogs. Bret Dougherty was there for help with his Blogger layout and Bloglines output. Environmental engineer Barnes Bierck came for help installing Movable Type, and a few others got help creating a first weblog using Blogsome (Ruby and Brian recommended this over Blogger). Brian posted a podcast of the first half of the teach-in, a discussion of the history and development of blogging. Next teach-in will be in July (details to follow). UPDATE: Gregg Gerdau is now blogging at “http://gregg610cio.blogsome.com/“http://gregg610cio.blogsome.com/. And I forgot to mention that Xin (Robert) Fu was at the teach-in.

Roy’s given his Tabulas weblog service a facelift, and from what he told me at the last meetup, the engine itself is getting rebuilt. Nice work, Roy.

A month or two ago, we talked about a map of Triangle bloggers. We could use feedmap, where there’s already a collection of local bloggers. Notice it also provides an OPML file, which is a collection of feeds from the blogs. Please add your blog and feed today. You can also use Blogdigger and GeoURL to find local bloggers.

An excellent conversation tonight, kicked off by Martin assertion that email should do away with physical mail. Jackson and Corey and I talked about thank you notes and the ‘lost art’ of letter writing (my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer on a South Pacific island taught me that the more mail you send out, the more mail you get in), while Roy nodded in the corner, worn out from his extra hours rewriting Tabulas. Jackson says he doesn’t read long blogs posts or articles, but does tag them in his del.iciou.us bookmarks (Corey subscribes to the feed). Letter writing and junk mail led into a discussion of newspapers and magazines. At home, my wife and I are reorganizing our home office, and I have to decide whether to save a stack of old newspapers from the Sixties (moon landing, Nixon Resigns, etc.) WillR and Kerry joined us, and added their thoughts on ebooks and the feel of a magazine. WillR recently trashed years of computer magazines and a box of punch cards. Naturally, we moved onto DRMs, the evil RIAA and whether copyright and intellectual property protections can survive in a digital world. Jackson spoke passionately about the shift from owning a physical record or compact disk to renting a digital song or album, and he wonders what the reaction will be when people learn that they can’t take a song with them once they stop subscribing to a music service. We did talk about blogs, of course, and how the issues above play into our online writing. We ended with a brief chat about the BlogTogether Teach-in this Saturday from 12-2 at the UNC Health Sciences Library. Be sure to join us that day for help with your blog. Don’t have a blog? We’ll help you create one on the spot.

It’s on. This evening at 6, Tyler’s Tap Room (Speakeasy lounge).