Dopp Juice Archive

I love O’Reilly. Their books are wonderful and their conferences are top-notch. But I have a prejudice against conferences that cost more than $1,000. I don’t go to them. There are plenty of cheaper conferences throughout the year that are more accessible to the people who actually use and build the web, and I go to those. O’Reilly can have its CEOs; I’d rather hang out with the entrepreneurs and freelancers who create free useful tools for their community. Life is just better that way.

(Nostalgia check: remember the Web 2.2. Unconference that I helped the Social Media Club organize in November? The tickets cost $32.95, and totally coincidentally it was held the same week as O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Conference, the tickets to which cost $3,295.00.)

So thank $deity (as Whump would say) that O’Reilly finally caught on. They’re hosting the upcoming Web 2.0 Expo, and no, it’s not less than a grand to go, but they are allowing in their hipster open source little brother, Web 2.Open — a free side-conference that will be going on simultaneously.

It’s a smart move on O’Reilly’s part. They’re pulling in people who make a difference, and whom they normally wouldn’t have any sway over. I’m hearing rumors that some people are ditching the Big Conference altogether in favor of the Open, because really, that’s where all the action’s gonna be.

Consider this your insider’s tip and go register now before the slots close. Click “Expo” for your ticket type and enter this discount code: webex07em . It will be free. No credit card info requested at all.

Oh yeah, and it’s in San Francisco, so round them locals up!

Seth Godin cracks me up and seduces me with his absurd grand ideas at the same time. Read his reposted article, NoBS, the End of MBA, about the true purpose of business school and his attempt to help us bypass the stupid stuff.

I want to apply.

No, really. I want to apply.

The Experiment…
People throw around a lot of names at conferences; sometimes you recognize them, sometimes you don’t. I went into my week at SXSWi 2007 with a mission: to write down every name that was dropped on me (see my pre-trip mission statement, Namedropping 2.0, for the back story and the rules).

The end result, in theory, would be a list of everyone who is Internet Famous in my spheres of interest as of SXSWi 2007. This is, of course, an oversimplification, an overdramatization, and a gross generalization, but hey, let’s look at the list anyway.

The Disclaimer…
This project was truly impossible and this list is incomplete. For many, many reasons I know I’ve left off significant people whose names were dropped at the conference. It’s really not on purpose — I just couldn’t keep up. So I invite you now to review the list and comment below with your own additions to it. Who is Internet Famous to you?

The Results…
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