my passport photo

React Publish your own item

by Sheila Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros

May 24, 2002 • Today's weblog

Realtime blogging: The image of the entire audience at a conference blogging away thrills Dave Winer (Scripting.com) "...People in the audience, with laptops, checking email, sending and receiving instant messages, and lately, posting publicly to their weblogs." and horrifies Shelley Powers (Burningbird): "... laptops allow us to record so much more quickly that people attempt to capture more and more of the presentation, to the point where they never look up. They never participate in the conversation that marks the two-way interaction of a good presentation."

Dori Smith, posting at Backup Brain, calls it blogsturbation.

An image arises of tourists who photograph everything but experience little of what they record. They collect the present, rather than create it.

Does everybody in the room need to blog the presentation? Suppose you get one good court-reporter-turned-blogger to transcribe and simultaneously upload the speeches, so bloggers can reflect and respond rather than record? Reporters use tape recorders, but transcribing voice has always been a drag.
Link to this item | Comment