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Saturday a.m. , August 30, I am here at the IFA show in Berlin, Germany. This is a liveblog of that event. Consider it a story in the raw.
I’m part (the audience part) of a blogging panel with. Robert Scoble
Thomas Knuwer Robert BasicHarry McCrackenLarry Magid Steve WildstromDave Graveline
My mini-analysis: The times are changing and blogging is a big deal but so is Twitter, Friendfeed and lots of other new technologies. The U.S. is ahead of Germany in the blogging game because they are more willing to jump right in. Robert Scoble is a good representative of the blogging (and more community).
I’ve been traveling with Harry, Larry, Steve, Robert (and Ed Baig from USA Today) at the IFA show. Every show has something different, but some aspects are eternal: sore feet, overloaded, press kit full shoulder bags, early mornings and late nights. IFA has all of those characteristics with some difference. In addition to the traditional consumer tech widgets and gadgets, there is an entire section devoted to appliances including refrigerators, washing machines and such. These appliances are sold on style, energy savings and new features. Hey, that sounds a lot like the current state of the personal computer industry.
Back to the blogging panel entitled, “Blogging in Germany and America: What German bloggers could learn from their US colleagues — if they want to.” I’d guess the big question for lots of bloggers is: Can make a living being a blogger? Should you chase hits or an exclusive audience? Or should you not worry about blogging finances at all and blog for the experience? I’ll keep you up to date during this morning’s session.
Scobel and the panelists are up on stage. RS (I’ll use the RS for Robert Scobel) Dave Graveline is doing the intros. RS is doing live video of the panel using QIK.com The video feed is working okay, but shaky.
Graveline still doing intros. About 40 people in the audience. Some look like serious bloggers, some like showgoers. Graveline intros RS
RS, showing live video via cellphone demo, turns it off. I (first person is RS) started blogging in 2000, At that time, no video, twitter, other stuff. Focus then was on writing and sharing information. When blogging first came out, normal everyday people could create and had access to information. Today he can turn on camera and do live video, etc. We can distribute our words without having to go through a committee, editor, publisher. I look at the world as a trillion channel world. Every search term in Google is a channel.
Favorite technologies: Friendfeed, people can comment. people can post video and vote. Have 18k people following on friendfeed.Twitter allows short blogpost. Follow large number of people. In Chinese earthquake, four people were twittering. In a few seconds, I knew there was an earthquake. I use Google talk to watch 20k people. Then use search engine in twitter to search the live web. Used to take weeks to get into a search engine. Old days of search when it took days or weeks, now it is a live web and can search within seconds. RS still talking. On panel, questions about hoaxes and stuff that isn’t true. Process of news that is not vetted. RS says always a chance that we are reading something not correct. RS waits 24 hours. If something survives 24 hours it is probably true. RS watches 600 bloggers coming into google reader, very quickly go through a lot of news. I can instantly share it. Everything I do goes back to friendfeed. Now starting the panel.
Thomas Knuwer. (journalist on Handelsblatt) German way behind thinking about the Internet and mostly negative. Especially reflected in classic media. . Have to learn from the good American guys. We do have good blogs. Learn to say, OK I am good. One big mistake, whole blogosphere consists of sub sectors. RS, in a trillion channel world I own a channel. Question, what about traditional media in Germany. TK, still a problem , can’t trust wikipedia. RS, uses wikipedia. TK, we journalists have to make connections. Internet is a perfect tool for communications, many german journalists don’t even give out their email address.
Robert Basic, journalists often want to treat you (a blogger) like a monkey.
Larrry Magid, I ecame a columnist back in 90s. Went from nothing to something. Built entire career by attaching myself to large media companies. See RS and say, how dare you (in a joking manner) also tremendous admiration to RS for being able to bypass the process. I think, (in ref to german bloggers) journalists will have to get your blogging bus. Bloggers are threatening to big media. RS, if it is interesting it will get spread by the word of mouth network that gets built up. RS talking about the power of word of mouth.
Larry Magid back on again. Interesting how quickly a blogger can reach more people than major newspaper.
Harry McCracken. Best and worst thing about blogs is they can be wrong. Mistakes can be instantly corrected. Magazine took six months from an idea to print.
Steve Wildstrom, blogs that go through traditional edit process are not real blogs. On businessweek.com we began life as channel on AOL, was simply magazine content published online.In recent months, the bloggers are taking over businessweek.com. More often than not a hot story will be a blog post. In a year predict most of content will be blog posts.
RS, now a participatory media. Guy who you write about will correct mistakes. Winer said he could not get his story through the traditional process and turned to blogging. Online you can participate and correct.Reputation and authority are important. One of reasons I am popular today is I would update and say I got it wrong and here is the correct information. .
Thomas Knuwer. Traditional journalists would do small correction on page two. Suddenly in blogs now have people in minutes can do corrections. Now (blogging) journalists have to stand for what you write.
RS, on Internet I can publish my entire interview. donny deutsch show did ten hours of interviews for two minutes on TV. TV will take just the outrageous quote. The two minutes can miss context.
Thomas Knuwer, in Germany, questions are added or rearranged on the Internet. One interview with famous soccer keeper who then said no he didn’t want anything published. Was not published. That is something German has to work on.
Robert Basic, If I am right or wrong readers will correct. I am not a company to sell anything. I am blogging what I am interested in. What can I imitate or learn from American. RS, tools are changing how we work. Friendfeed didn’t exist in October. Information is passed along friend, by friend, by friend.
Magid, now have to be own camera operators, etc. Says to RS you have a professional videographer working with you.
Harry McCracken. If you are traditional journalists, old way is a dead end. If you do leverage you own stuff, you have a career forever.Graveline, Are you making any money? Thomas Knuwer, we don’t have any ads on my blog. I am a professional journalists. If I did 8 hours a day blogging, and number of readers go up in a linear way, i would earn my salary. But blogging did take my personal reputation to a new level. did make many new contacts. People feel they can trust me, they do this because they read what I write. RS, I blog my entire life.
Questions, on U.S. elections, Role of bloggers
Harry McCracken. watch on twitter on what hundreds of people are saying at the same time. twitter forces you to go out with short. twitter by definition is interesting, intermingling.
Wildstrom, lots of blogs are opinions, same as lots of columnists. Blogs that contribute original information are doing a great service.
Larry Magid, notion of vetting the professional press. NYT, lots of thoughtful, caring people work at being honest. Blogosphere have to work harder to get something you trust.
Joe Trippe is a blogger, I will count something like that higher. You build reputation. He is participating online.
RS is talking about people he really knows as people he might trust more. LMagid asks how can you go from nowhere. RS, Google’ s popularity contest of cross links, but not in Twitter or Friendfeed.
Thomas Knuwer, have to make yourself known. the leading soccer magazine in German came into being because they were meeting with people.
Questions. From the audience, you are journalists. No, American bloggers on the panel. Why only one German blogger on the panel? Robert Basic, if look at people in discussion. One difference, German, we are problemizers. Germans will ask too many questions about blog an if can not answer properly you will not start. Americans are not perfect but they put tools in hand and just use it. In U.S., they just do it and fix it by working. That is the difference. These are classy guys learning new stuff.
Would you be interested in German blogs that list German blogs , Thomas Knuwer. RS, we have decent translation tools, I can go to Google. If something is happening here, it will turn up on Twitter.