Dug your talk yesterday. I like your thinking. Agree with you about Gnomedex versus other conferences. Regarding your talk; you are indeed breaking down the proscenium/dominance-from-the-stage and just where a lot of entertainment needs to be going. My hope is that the crusty old farts of my generation will spend more time in a mySpace/Second Life headset and less in a one-to-many Clear Channel one. Thanks.

Ethan - Really enjoyed the talk, and finally meeting you face to face. I think more outsiders (that is, people who don’t have a Technorati rank) would be a decidedly good thing at next year’s Gnomedex. We need to hear from people who are coming at the questions from angles we don’t perceive; having the same cast of characters just creates a sense of deja vu (”Didn’t they blog this a few months back? I think I remember a comment they left on my blog that said that” and so on) that doesn’t lend itself to progress.

Will take you up on the free CD offer when I’m in town next month.

Have you tried a BarCamp? Doesn’t get much flatter… Sure you have the occasional “internet famous” presentations, but the better sessions are always the guy who’s been banging out the code at night and decides to show it off at a low key local event like BarCamp.

Come on out to Austin in August and check it out.

www.barcamptexas.org

Thoughts on Gnomedex 6.0

This year Chris and Ponzi asked me to shoot some pictures during Gnomedex 6.0, so I spent a lot of Gnomedex running around with a camera in my hand. This post is the usual roundup of impressions of the conference. I’m going to write a second post a

Hey Ethan, I enjoyed your talk at Gnomedex. Unfortunately I missed out on meeting you, but some other time.

Good advice re reading up on theory and art. As the author of the Read/WriteWeb blog, I guess I need to go back to school huh? p.s. it’s McLuhan not McCluhan But seriously, I love that old school media theory.

cheers, Richard

Ethan.
Great talk and great to meet you.

I agree wholeheartedly about the more soulful, artistic and creative balance that I think these things need to have. This year had more than last year, and as a ‘citizen createc’ I find that all the more enjoyable.

I disagree about less podcasting though. Those that can get their interviews and content up and online asap are doing those that couldn’t make it a favour. They’re hungry to hear what’s going on. Rather like live music events, festivals etc. Those who couldn’t get a ticket sit at home refreshing pages of related tags to see what’s going on, as soon as it happens. Rather like the vanity tag searching I noticed you doing, while sat behind you ;P

In fact I saw ALOT of that at Gnomedex. People sat there constantly refreshing the gnomedex flickr tag page to see photos possibly taken minutes before. The navel-gazing has increased so much, compared to last year.

No wonder I couldn’t get online to check my mail
Here’s to Gnomedex7.0!

You seem like a reasonable person, but I can’t imagine you’d like being called a bastard in public. Why do you do that Ethan? Geez I thought we had a cordial thing going, now I feel a pretty big imbalance.

The whole point of blogging, imho, is to bring humanity into communication, but you just said something on your blog, something personal and hurtful, that I jsut can’t imagine you saying to my face or Marc’s.

Please do a reality check, look up The Golden Rule, and imagine what it would feel like to be called such an ugly name.

Dave, it was sarcasm. I really admire you, and in no way consider you a bastard of any way shape or form. Appologies.

And btw, you got the Horses part right. I was a Patti Smith fan when she was new. I also bought Sgt Pepper’s and the White Album when they came out. Exile on Main Street and Morrison Hotel. Feats Don’t Fail Me Now.

Sorry, i didn’t find it funny, obviously. I get flamed so much Ethan, it’s just plain ugly to me.

And by the way you’re getting quoted on the bastards thing. That’s how I found out about it.

Edited it…

It was a term of endearment But I hear you about the flames.

If you scroll down to a few entries back I found some cool Patti Smith footage on YouTube.

ethan. was great to see you and your points are mostly righton. say hi to michael stipe for me and let’s think about kickin’ off that live music event photography web service. mmm mm.

I enjoyed your summary of Gnomedex Ethan, despite the fact that I wasn’t able to get there this year. BTW, I think you mean ‘Baudrillard’, instead of “Bauldrillard”, but I couldn’t agree more with your point about theory. In this day and age when everyone is seemingly occupied with building the next great AJAX toolkit (or whatever), it’s important to take a step back and think about ‘why’ rather then ‘how’. Well said…

Hey Ethan - Good to meet you @ Gnomedex. I think you were a big hit on Day 2 as evidenced by all the folks who mentioned your session @ EMP.

I just traded emails with the guy coordinating la barcamps and dinners and you may want to check it out: http://barcamp.org/BarCampLA-Geek3

pete

p.s.

What was the “snake eating it’s own tail” art reference again? I need to remember that one.

Its the ouroboros, the snake eating itself…

I find it an apt way to describe the blogosphere, and totally shown visually on TechMeme every day. Its not a bad thing, just the nature of closed ecosystems, and its endemic to other areas like academia, science, etc.

[…] While playing with Elastic Path “thinking putty,” they discuss ways to optimize the user experience, pros and cons of various technologies, the EBA Grid and Combo Box products and recap a few Gnomedex conference highlights - plus have some laughs about ski culture (gapers), community building, fantasy sports and the fleece-filled recreational equipment district of Vancouver. […]

[…] Ethan “Almost Famous” Kaplan works for Warner Brothers and is dripping with intelligence and name-drops. He earned an MFA, brought REM online and has taught at UCSC, not bad for 26 years old. He spoke of democratizing the music listening experience and breaking down the barriers between artists and fans. He showed some ways he and the WB webmonkeys are building community and spoke of the struggles to get management buy-in for new ideas. […]

[…] While playing with Elastic Path “thinking putty,” they discuss ways to optimize the user experience, pros and cons of various technologies, the EBA Grid and Combo Box products and recap a few Gnomedex conference highlights - plus have some laughs about ski culture (gapers), community building, fantasy sports and the fleece-filled recreational equipment district of Vancouver. […]