Rough Notes :
1) Michael Arrington the man behind TechCrunch.com:
TechCrunch is one of the key web sites for covering Startups. It started as fun, posting this own research notes on startup business in the valley. There are now (franchise?) versions covering France and Japan.
He said a bunch of provocative things. He admitted to a “Post first, get it right later” modus operandi, although he acknowledged the risks to reputation , and “The more outrageous things I say, the more money I make”. He prefaces a lot of this comments with “I’m an idiot, but…”. I can see how he can seem arrogant, but still has a sense of humour about his role as a pseudo tech nu journalist.
Update : Micheal mentioned the Engadget/Apple stock price story. A PR person I was talking to afterwards commented the given Mr. Jobs control issues, that the Apple media relations person was unlikely to be in the know, so their only believable response would have be a “I don’t know”. Only a never few media people (old or new) would have be able to call Mr Jobs directly to get the goods. The issue looks to be an Apple issue not a Media issue. Also TechDirt’s Mike Masnick (also a Mesh panelist) has posted on Yes, Major News Organizations Make Mistakes That Move Markets Too
2 ) Austin Hill and Tom Williams talked about their Charity 2.0 philanthropy web endeavours:
Two very grounded and nice guys. (bums?) I guess one of the points that both of them where getting at was making charity more personal, more engaging, rather than “just” giving your cash.
Austin Hill mentioned a Dark Green PC, a “seti@home” like project, just getting off the ground , which tracks how much power you save by turning off your computer. (donating “power cycles” to the planet rather than “computing cycles” to find ET or fold proteins).
one comment made : “Blogging is a gift economy”
Also mentioned was CodeForGooda contest to build a website for a charity in 24 hours, set to happen in Toronto on july 28th.
3) 15 minutes of Fame : A little taste of DemoCamp at mesh!
DemoFuse for creating interactive website tours And demos;
Octopz for online collaboration and white boarding in particular for rich media (flash and video) and rich content (word/excel).;
Five Limes is “Green Living Freshly Squeezed Daily” or a way to find and share Green Stuff in your town.
4) lunch was needed, and good. The conversations were very enjoyable.
5 ) I missed out on the “Web and Politics” (Andrew Coyne and Garth
I think one of the points I got out of this was the “new media” telling the “old media” : come on in the water’s fine!” In other words the established media needs to get over there snobbery, embrace the web, experiment, and start hustling.
6) In the most intellectual talks of the whole 2 days was Mark Schneider, Nora Young, and Mark Federman debating “Are We an Inch Wide and a Mile Deep?” and in the process ranged from Plato complaining about the loss of wisdom caused by this on fad of writing and reading, to Marshall McLuhan.
One comment from the audience : “Information doesn’t want to be free, I wants to be valuable”.
Nora Young made a comment (something along the lines of) “Traditional media, which holds Authority, has failed to use that authority to do Investigative journalism and in-depth reporting.”
7 ) Jian Ghomeshi attempted Cat Herding with Ethan Kaplan, McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves, Amber MacArthur around the subject of “The Future of Entertainment – The People Formerly Known as the Audience”
Amber MacArthur made comment about fast video webcasting has become accepted and (implied : not something she has to ashamed for).
Michael Geist (whom I final had a change to meet, corporeal , post The Bulte Video) ambushed Ethan about DRM (who had the good grace to be embarrassed as he parroted the party line).
And Jason asked a question about bandwidth inflation which I’m still trying to understand and wrap my head around (but Jason does that to me every time!)
someone said “DRM is like the war on drugs.”
Jian mentioned the just announced closing of the iconic “Sam the Record Man” on Yonge street (near Dundas), and what it meant for him.
Unanswered questions :
1) unexpected consequences (good and bad) with the changes from audience to participant.
2) how has the business model changed since you started, and where do you see it going.
8) After the official events of the day, there was much Social Meshing going on for many hours.
Additional tags: Mesh07 and for link-o-rama see more