Blog Bash

MSNBC’s Will Femia was at the NYC Blogger Bash last week, and wrote a spot-on column about what it was like to be in a room with a bunch of web-loggers. He hit the nail on the head:

…the diversity of the exchanges really was unique, even if I hadn’t known that the meeting was born of online community. It wasn’t like the stand-around-watching-the-ice-in-your-drink-melt, “so how’s work, sure is cold out” type banter I’ve done with strangers at weddings, for example.

Ultimately what I think bloggers have in common is a sharing quality, and a generosity of attention. Bloggers are the people who are always recommending something they’ve just read. They have a story or a joke and they have to relay it …

Some of the bloggers I spoke with said that blog readers are voyeurs — but the people at this party weren’t lurking and spying like peeping Toms, they were engaging each other. I’m not sure whether to call it curiosity or interest or something else, but the event would not have thrived as it did were the people there not endowed with that “listening” quality.