DANNY O'BRIEN breezes through a social scene that buzzes away at full strength currently in the Bay Area, touches Hyderabad, Halifax, Dublin, and Cork. When I read "Wired on Friday" in the Irish Times, I sometimes wonder if Danny O'Brien actually knows the people he cites or whether he has seen the technology he describes--his reach extends outside of my radar on many occasions. He mentions these things today in his 1200 word column: Nerd Salon, Copynight, Bar Camp, BloggerCon, SuperHappyDev House, BlogHer, Gnomedex, Cereal Bar, iCal, MySpace, SMTP, Apache, The Sims, MP3s, Web 2.0, upcoming.org, 30 boxes, Mosuki, and Ruby Red Labs. O'Brien carefully localises his take on events. He writes that "Ireland has its own TechCamp, developed on the Bar Camp model. If distant coder gatherings have their romantic allure, the barrier to creating one in your local pub has never been lower." Then there are the wobbly moments in the Buzz Cloud and O'Brien describes them too.
Danny writes, "The amateurisation and redistribution of the IT convention has had its wobblier moments. The Bar Camp creators have agonised over how best to protect the 'brand' while still allowing anyone to create their own ad hoc event.
"Corkman Tom Raftery held his own convention on the ideas of 'Web 2.0', only to find himself faced with a legal letter from lawyers claiming to act to protect the trademark of the original Web 2.0 conferences initiated by publishers O'Reilly Media."
Danny O'Brien -- "Valley geeks' social scene has never been busier" in The Irish Times Business This Week, 30 June 2006. The article is probably premium content yet I cannot find it even though I am a paid subscriber.
