Kari and I are at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City today and tomorrow.
You can see a live stream of the happenings here.
We’ve seen a few fascinating presentations this morning. We saw a demo of Linkfluence, neat spirographs of communities of bloggers through links between blogs.
Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake was a great example of how a blogger can taken an issue (hers was the Valerie Plame affair), run with it, and build up a following. However, I questioned her “actions” boiling down to taking ads out in newspapers. It’s very MoveOn.org. Is that the best we can do, take online passions, and take it to on land media?
Then Patrick Ruffini spoke (he’s a conservative blogger). He said, “A small networked group beats a large atomized group any day of the week.” Interesting — but I wonder when those small groups become impenetrable cliques?
Interesting stuff, more to come!