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Kasch Park

DENVER (Reuters) - Democrats prepared a grand spectacle on Thursday to celebrate the historic presidential nomination of Barack Obama, who will take the party reins with a speech that spells out his vision for change in America.

The Web Services Policy Working Group has published two Web Services Policy 1.5 - Working Drafts: an update to the Primer and a First Public Working Draft of Guidelines for Policy Assertion Authors. The new Guidelines document provides ...

If you are interested in getting your hands on a Samsung Instinct, RadioShack has announced that they will be offering an exclusive $100 price on the phone to celebrate its launch across their 4,400 stores. Unfortunately, this deal pretty much sucks because it is available only to new Sprint users who sign up for a Simply Everything Plan. The Instinct is easily Sprint's best phone, but a $30 price drop is not worth signing on to their sub-par network. The deal starts on Friday and runs through the Labor Day weekend. [MobileBurn]

Ted Shelton: "Frankly I felt that BlogOn was a waste of time and money."

I think the BlogOn conference was overproduced. In the name of professionalism the organizing firm turned off potential speakers, oversubscribed sponsors, etc.

I would have liked a debatable topic (aside from *blogging = journalism*. Two people slugging it out. Or a devil's advocate taking challenges from the floor.

I would have liked more hard numbers. Facts. Charts. Diagrams. We have the analytic tools to BS-check them; harder on vague opinions and single-points-of-observation.

I found it disturbing how much money was being commanded (from both attendees and sponsors) for a conference at a university. Maybe it was because it was at Berkeley? Maybe we should have taken over a community college or a Cal State or a DeVry. The facilities costs would have been cheaper at least. I heard an organizer apologize and say the next one would be at a hotel, like that would have been better.

Cost wasn't the whole problem. We're at a stage where early adopters are meeting folks who want to leap the chasm. Huge gaps in knowledge, experience, context, culture, vocabulary. It's the gap.

There are huge ideas to be explored, even in the world of applying blogs to media strategy and the enterprise. And most of the big ideas weren't even on the agenda at BlogOn. Probably because it was catering to those who want to commercialize, fund, and otherwise exploit (excuse me, "get in on") the emerging medium.

Let's fork these conferences so advanced topics on business and technology and culture fit the participants. 

[a klog apart]