There’s no doubt that Portland loves its blogging. Blogs here, blogs there, blogs blogs everywhere. But when it comes to blogging about Portland itself? No blog does a better job than OurPDX, the network of Portland bloggers who cover all things Portland.
[HTML2]There’s no doubt that Portland loves its blogging. Blogs here, blogs there, blogs blogs everywhere. But when it comes to blogging about Portland itself? No blog does a better job than OurPDX, the network of Portland bloggers who cover all things Portland.
That post about Twitalyzer’s assessment of the Top 100 Twitter types in Portland created quite the kerfuffle, didn’t it? Tonight at Beer and Blog Portland, you’ll be able to meet many of the folks on the Top 100 list and hear from Twitalyzer creator Eric T. Peterson how the magic works.
[HTML3]Ah, Twitter. If there’s one thing I know about Twitter and Portland it’s this: Portland loves Twitter. It’s helped our community band together, it’s helped us monitor the weather, and it’s helped inspire new products—like TwitterLocal and Twitalyzer. Heck, we even have Rael Dornfest, the guy engineering our Twitter user experience, here in town.
Twitter and Portland were made for each other.
But when I start thinking about Portland and Twitter there it always leads to questions. Who else in Portland is using Twitter? Who am I missing? Who are the most active and influential people in Portland on Twitter?
Leave it to Twitalyzer, the Portland-based Twitter analysis tool, to answer that question. Read More
To blog or not to blog? It’s a question with which any number of corporations wrestle. And today at the InnoTech eMarketing Summit, Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb and Josh Bancroft of Intel will answer that question—and likely many more about corporate communications, blogging, and microblogging sites like Twitter. (I’ll be on the panel as well, doing a lot of smiling and nodding.)
Here’s the basis of the discussion:
Whether out of curiosity or under pressure, you’ve likely started a company blog. Maybe you’re even letting employees blog. But making blogging a successful component of your organization’s communications and support programs? That’s another thing, entirely. Join this panel of panel of elite bloggers and microbloggers to learn how you can use blogs to increase transparency with your target market, create deeper and lasting relationships with your existing customers, and improve your company’s visibility on the Web. Attendees are sure to leave with both a renewed motivation to blog and specific steps for improving their organizations’ use of traditional blogs and new microblogging platforms.
The three of us will be providing our insight at 2 PM, today, in Portland Ballroom 256 at the Oregon Convention Center. So if you’re at InnoTech, we’d love to see you. For you Twitter types, the hashtag for the event is #emspdx.
WebVisions—the awesome event that brings some of the best and brightest Web types to Portland every year—is hosting Beer and Blog Portland this week. And like many hosts, they want to do something that makes the event memorable.
So they’re standing up and presenting? Not exactly. They’re hosting Twitter Wars between technology factions. The prize for he or she who dominates all contenders? A free pass to WebVisions.
What are the topics about which the warring factions will argue for dominance? Well, there will be:
Now, I’m fairly confident that I’ve got a good understanding of the topics over which the folks will be fighting. But then I get a little foggy on how the whole “Twitter War” thing works. (Me == Not so bright.) But I’m sure that once I’ve had a beer… Oh wait.
Anyway, it should go something like this:
Each panelist will have one minute to state their case, followed by 3 minutes of free-for-all. People can comment and vote via twitter the entire time.
To Vote: Tweet !v and a comment with the #hashtag and/or @panelist included. This will vote for a hashtag, panelist, or both. A person can only vote once for a hashtag or panelist, subsequent votes will be ignored, but their comments will be saved. A user can vote separately for a hashtag and a panelist to write a longer comment.
To comment: To comment only, leave out the !v and just tweet your comment with the #hashtag and/or @panelist included.
Got it? Good. Explain it to me when you get there.
Who will be on the panels? Well, that’s up to you, my crowdsourcey friend:
Nominate yourself or someone else for a panel by tweeting “@TWarsBeerBlog I nominate @username for #Topic.” (But, seriously? Whatever you do, don’t nominate @username for anything. That guy has a temper. I’m just saying.)
What do you win? A free pass to WebVisions is up for grabs for each of the battles. Not feeling battleworthy? Do you feel lucky? Well, do you? Because you also have the chance to attend WebVisions for free by answering one question. And I won’t battle you, at all.
As always or almost always, Beer and Blog will be at the Green Dragon. Hope to see you there (so you can explain the whole Twitter War thing to me). Visit Upcoming to RSVP.
Portland-founded Beer and Blog just keeps getting better and better. They’re now up to 11 regional gatherings with the latest edition de España, Beer and Blog Villamartin.
The new Spanish chapter is the second international gathering after Beer and Blog Tokyo.
Stateside, Beer and Blog features chapters in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana (that’s right, Beer and Blog has secured both the “no daylight savings time” states), Missouri, Nevada, Texas, and, of course, the three locations in Oregon.
Interested in starting a Beer and Blog of your own? (Yes, Omaha, San Francisco, DC, and all of you other spots, I’m looking at you.) Just contact @justinkistner. You’ll get your own space on the Beer and Blog site, a Twitter account, swag, and team support from all of the other chapters.
Speaking of Beer and Blog, this evening’s Beer and Blog Portland will be an “End Awkwardness” field trip to Cubespace featuring karaoke and Open Source Bridge outreach. (And if someone can explain how performing karaoke is supposed to end awkwardness rather than enhance it, I’m all ears.) For more information, see Upcoming or Calagator.
But does it stop there? Oh no, my friend. Not by a long shot.
Tonight on Strange Love Live, Justin announced the launch of Beer and Blog chapters in Houston, Phoenix, and—with its first international chapter—Tokyo.
Sniff sniff. Our little Beer and Blog is all growed up.
Congratulations to Justin, his Portland-based team, and all of the chapter leads! It’s great to see something that has so strengthened the Portland tech community getting the chance to work its magic in other towns.
Last night at the Portland Web Innovators presentation, I got the chance to laud compliments on Beer and Blog, an event that has really helped solidify the Web and Open Source startup community in Portland—and now Corvallis. A little later, I got the chance to share some of the early thinking on what will be the biggest volunteer event for Portland in 2009, Open Source Bridge.
Hi friends! Rick Turoczy asked me if he and the Open Source Bridge crew could lead some discussion tomorrow @beerandblog. I think what they are up to is valuable to the Portland community and her tech scene, so I said yes. If you’re not yet familiar with Open Source Bridge, they are a group of local techies that want to continue OSCON now that they are not coming back to Portland. But, they’re growing into much more than that.
So why not take some time out of your busy schedule of attending holiday parties to hang out with the Open Source Bridge team at Beer and Blog? Not interested in Open Source Bridge? Come on over anyway. You might find yourself having such a good time that you wind up wending your way over to the CyborgCamp pre-party at Vidoop.
Every week around this time, a group of Portland blogging and tech types gather at the Green Dragon to end the week on a good note with Beer and Blog.
This week, it just so happens that Beer and Blog falls on Halloween which has it—like a victim of an unfortunate zombie bite—transforming into the ghoulishly clever “Bat and Blog.”
But wait, there’s more:
Now, if you are like me (meaning, not into intricate costumes that involve actual planning) you may find yourself dressing up as yourself again this year (meaning, sans costume). All that thinking ahead for costume ideas really bums me out, so I usually skip the whole thing.
This year, however, I came up with an easy-to-create Halloween getup of the non-lame variety that lets you participate in the celebrated tradition of being someone else for a day. The best part is that this costume idea is of someone we all admire, whom men and women alike want to emulate. Someone smart, popular, good looking and super-dooper nice, who supports and promotes the Portland tech scene with unwavering love. A bona fide tour de force.
On this glorious day, Beer and Blog will be taking a field trip to the Leisure Public House. Here to tell you all about it is our St. Johns correspondent, mediaChick.
For mediachick’s five fantastic reasons for making the not-so-arduous trip north, see the Beer and Blog, um, blog. My favorite?
The miscellaneous, yet delightful, discoveries: jukebox, generous outside patio, ping-pong table, bocce, wifi, and a sleepy and snuggly pub cat.
