Last night I attended a meeting of the Sydney Weblogger Meetup Group, hosted by Sara, aka The Bargain Queen. The venue was Paddy Maguire's Pub in the city.
I enjoyed meeting everyone and it was great to see the conversations flow so easily, despite the amazing variations in our blog content and scope. Several of the "professional bloggers" work in public relations, and it was enlightening to hear how savvy PR people so quickly embraced blog technology when it came along.
At my count there were eleven attendees, although more might have turned up after I raced for my train. I know a few of the bloggers had met before, some only by email but others face-to-face, but this newbie was made to feel quite at home in no time at all. I am looking forward to exploring the blogs of other attendees over the next few days/weeks, and to seeing everyone at the next meeting. Thanks for organising the event, Sara.
The tip of the evening came from Steven Noble, who writes a blog called Elbow Grease: Getting Results in PR & Digital Communication. Steve told us, "If you want to be noted by a particular audience, the first step is to ask how you, in their eyes, can be noteworthy."
Mmmmm. Interesting...
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4 comments:
Hi Ian,
Great to meet you. I was absolutely fascinated with your stories about Star Trek fans creating their own movies and even their own live skits long before the era of YouTube and the explosion of user-generated content. Any posts I should read to learn more?
Hey Steven,
Thanks for the comments. The Johnson Brothers' website for Starship Exeter has their two available episodes and, IIRC, there are links to online journalists' articles etc.
There are online bits about amateur/rival ST episodes at: startrek.com, G4 and here.
My own blog entries about the first "Exeter" episode, in which I appear in the final tag, include: here and here.
Enjoy!
Awesome. Too many people think "consumer generated content" (CGM) is about technology -- YouTube, camcorders, etc. But if you can write your own skit and perform it live to friends wearing home-sewn costumes, it's clear that the only element that's essential to CGM is motivation.
Yes indeed. Science fiction media fans are also well known for writing not-for-profit fanzines - containing fictional adventures of characters (and even new pairings of characters) in the TV shows and movies they follow. There is a fascinating work by Henry Jenkins, called "Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture" (Routledge, 1992).
Then there are the action figure customizers, whereby existing figures are altered to resemble characters that were never actually made by the official license holders. Again, motivation is the key.
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