At the last minute I was able to free my schedule and go to the June Columbus Tweetup. What a lot of fun!
The Tweetup was organized by @JenniferLaycock. You can learn more about today’s meetup at Jennifer’s Small Business Answers web site.
Check out the pictures: http://www.flickr.com/groups/792807@N23/pool/
Anyone in the Central Ohio area who is a blogger, podcaster or social networking enthusiast/expert should be aware that there is a potential meetup group organizing called the Columbus Social Media Cafe. Yesterday was the 4th SMC meetup and I gathered that they are just now working on defining what the goals are of the group and plan on forming a mission statement. You can read more about the last meetup at Elephants on Bicycles and This Woman’s Work blogs.
When I arrived, I found myself briefly explaining what PodCamp and PodCamp Ohio is. I was not prepared to make any sort of presentation at the meetup but I did my best. This was a learning experience for myself, as I found myself speaking to a crowd of bloggers who are aware that podcasting should be included in their space but don’t exactly have a grasp on what exactly podcasting is. I also mentioned briefly some of the viral networking techniques that PodCamp Ohio is using in order to market the event to bloggers, podcasters and social networking enthusiasts.
I learned a lot from the meetup. What I found the most interesting was what they are envisioning; a social networking web site that pulls in feeds of blogs and podcasts and provides social networking features such as tags and comments. The group would be the perfect customer for the RawVoice Generator, which does pretty much what they want. One of the organizers mentioned someone who is in the process of developing such a tool that the group could use, so I didn’t quite feel comfortable mentioning that my company already has such a product on the market for more than 2 years now. The process they are undertaking made me feel vindicated that the past 3 years of my life that I’ve spent developing such tools is of real importance, not just globally but also for the local community. There is real potential for blogging and podcasting to connect with its local communities, and I for sure want to be involved in helping that happen here in Central Ohio.
I hope they can create a brand/logo soon and put in place a scheduled meeting time using not just meeting spaces in the public but also utilizing those social media tools that are so important such as TalkShoe/BlogTalkRadio for on-line recorded phone meetings and Google Group public mailing lists. At the moment the only way anyone can participate is by attending the public meetings, which may limit the audience size of participants. The more opportunity to let someone be herd, the more opportunities that will be used by those with the means. I’m pretty confident they will pick up on these other tools soon.
I am a little concerned that some of the founders organizing the Columbus SMC group found PodCamp Ohio somewhat threatening. I hope they did not get that impression cause it is definitely not something meant to compete with other groups with similar goals. PodCamp is a social event with the primary goal to bring bloggers and podcasters together to share knowledge and network with each other. I hope the Columbus SMC organizers don’t feel threatened by the event, that’s certainly not the events goal and I am confident that’s not what Chris Brogan or Christopher Penn intended when they created PodCamp.
Two topics to talk about, the movie Juno and the rock band Rose Hips.
Last night Heather and I saw a screening for the movie Juno. I’m not going to talk about the plot of the movie, if you want to learn more, go to the IMDB page. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0467406/
If you’re a Nirvana/Grunge generation child like myself, you will appreciate a lot of the dialog in the movie. Older folks will not get many of the jokes unless they’ve kept up with the current lingo and music. Otherwise, it’s a pretty good movie for anyone to watch.
On the way home from the movie, I turned on the FM instead of listening to a podcast, listening into CD101 (modern rock station in Columbus). I found myself listening to a song that had the same kind of sound as Hum. I was utterly surprised near the end of the song to hear a woman’s voice. Today I checked out their myspace page, listend to 4 of their songs and sure enough, they sound a lot like Hum.
Site: http://www.myspace.com/rosehipsgirls
I wonder if they’re influenced by Hum and other 90’s modern rock or if they stumbled upon the sound on their own. Either way, I’m a fan now.
