Tag Archives: barcampnashville

Oct 15

BarCamp addendum

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When Staeven Frey was talking about brand marketing, one of the rhetorical questions he asked the audience was how many had an iPhone or iPad, and then how many of the rest ever felt intimidated by not having one.

Well, I was really intimidated at BarCamp. It seemed everyone had a tablet or at least a really nice smartphone. I stopped by one of the vendor booths and they had a giveaway going for two AppleTV boxes. I didn’t enter – in part, because I don’t have the infrastructure to use AppleTV right now, but also because of my crummy phone.

You see, the giveaway involved posing for a photo with some camping equipment which the vendor had brought and set up next to its booth, and then tweeting it with the vendor’s hashtag.

“Just hand me your smartphone, and I’ll take the photo,” said the helpful fellow at the booth.

Well, the smartphone I tore up six weeks ago would have, in theory, been able to post such a photo. The unlocked, out-of-date smartphone I ended up buying to replace it has a camera, but every time I’ve tried to use it to upload a photo to Facebook the camera has crashed. And it’s not even 3G, and I don’t have TwitPic set up on it yet, and so it would have taken me 10 minutes just to get the phone set up to upload a photo to Twitter, and even then I’m not sure it would have done so without crashing.

I mumbled something about how maybe I’d come back and enter the contest later, and wandered off to my next session.

Aug 23

Feedburner

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I had heard of Feedburner before, but I didn’t really know much about it and assumed it was just for people whose blog software doesn’t already create a syndication feed. But one of the speakers at BarCamp talked a little about it and said it improves the format of your feed and can make it more friendly and useful, plus it gives you statistics about the use of your feed. So I’m trying it out. I have used a WordPress plugin to redirect my WordPress feed addresses to FeedBurner. If you subscribe to this blog by way of a feed reader, let me know if you have any problems.

Aug 21

Twit

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I tried Twitter a few months ago, didn’t really like it, and rather than simply stop using it, which would have been the logical thing to do, I deleted my account.

I’m really not into the mini-blog aspects of Twitter, the idea of keeping the world up-to-date on what TV show you’re watching or the fact that you just poured yourself a bowl of cereal. But it can be useful as a communications tool — a quick way to leave messages, sort of a cross between IM, bulletin boards and e-mail. It just so happened that at BarCamp, I was sitting next to a monitor which displayed the event’s dedicated Twitter channel, and it was fun to read the conversations there.

Now, one of my online friends has suggested I get back on Twitter. I’m thinking about it. Any feedback?

Unfortunately, if I do get back onto Twitter, those of you who added me last time will have to add me all over again, since I deleted my account.

Aug 19

eBay virgin

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Griffin RoadTripI was at the Exit/In before the doors opened yesterday, and in my goodie bag I received a Griffin RoadTrip, which is an iPod accessory. I don’t have an iPod and it’s of no use to my generic MP3 player. I looked it up at the manufacturer’s site and it’s worth more than I expected. I don’t know how many they gave away yesterday; Griffin was a sponsor of the event and had a lounge-like area in the balcony of the Exit/In.

My West Coast brother suggested I try to sell it on eBay. But I’ve never used eBay. Not once, as a buyer or a seller. My brother offered to sell it through his account (I imagine he’s got good user ratings) and I will ship it directly from here to the buyer.

I don’t guess I’m much of a techie if I don’t own an iPod and I’ve never used eBay. :)

Aug 18

BarCamp

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Ivy and Kat

Originally uploaded by jicarney.

Well, BarCamp was great fun, and informative to boot. Here we see Ivy and Kat leading a session about Music City Bloggers in the smaller, less formal venue at Cafe Coco, behind the Exit/In.

I was delighted to meet Newscoma in person, and found her just as delightful as in our many online conversations. We both work for small-town newspapers and sometimes vent about it to each other. Methoblogger Gavin Richardson and his lovely bride Erin were there (Gavin liveblogged it). I met Hutchmo briefly, and, like an idiot, completely forgot to thank him for his help in getting our Times-Gazette bloggers added to the Music City Bloggers blogroll.

I also met Rachel of Women’s Health News, and spoke briefly with the famous WonderDawg.

I got some good insights on blogging to pass along to our T-G bloggers, especially from Brittney Gilbert‘s presentation, and I think I’m going to turn a few of the presentations about corporate blogging into a news story for the T-G.

I did not stay until the bitter end or for the live music (which is going on as I write this, back home in Shelbyville), because I have to preach tomorrow. But I had a great time.

More photos are here.

UPDATE: I knew I was going to forget and leave someone out: Squirrel Queen.

Jul 31

Pumped

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Well, I can’t wait for tomorrow, when the new Times-Gazette web site launches, including our local blogs.

Meanwhile, I’ve just registered for BarCamp, which (despite its misleading name) is a new media conference scheduled for Aug. 18 in Nashville. I went ahead and registered, space being limited; I have to check with my editor tomorrow and make sure I’m actually going to be free to attend. :)

 

UPDATE: It’s 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. If you came here from Kat’s kind link at Music City Bloggers, the T-G web site is not up yet, but we expect our corporate webmasters in Missouri to activate it within the hour. If you see a slide show at the top of the page, it’s the new site; if you see a fixed image of a waterfall, it’s still the old one.