BlogConII@Hideout And Related 感想

So there was a much smaller con at Hideout last night. Managed to get two Kilkennys at half price, haven't had that for around three years, so that's good. But before that, met my ex-gf in the afternoon before wandering into a library that's along the way and deciding to pick up a book on the I Ching but managed to find two instead (fascinating stuff, I should talk about it in a few days.) Went to Macs to get some sidedish, reading the books, and waiting for Angela and later Stephanie...

Hideout is amazingly tiny (compared to the pictures), but it's the perfect small place. But the end of the night, it was filled with bloggers, otherwise ordinary people who've graciously decided to write and share their wisdom and themselves on the Internets. Met Tym and her husband Terse. Now Tym is one blogger that I distinctively remember because I had stumbled onto her gripes page (back then in 2000 it probably wasn't called blogs) and read the whole thing until 3 in the morning. So that's pretty surreal to meet the author! Also met RamblingAlcoholic, MailOrderBride. Other folks were were there included YewJin and friend, La Idler, YanYing, Angela (longgg hair wahahaa! :)), Stephanie, Yuhui, Eddy, Kelly, Chin, AirHole, BigFStarStarStar, UrbanMaleBitch, mrbrown, miyagi and SarongPartyGirl who arrived just as we were leaving...

I've been involved with another online tech community, the SG Palm Users' Group, and I learnt early on that the tech/PDA business is really just a sideshow, a nice excuse, for the actually objective of networking, and that was one approach I adopted in managing the forums. So I think early on, the folks behind SPUG really encouraged online people to meet offline both for the advancement of the community (it's far less likely for forum flamewars to occur if folks actually met), and to increase the perception of 'reality' (as compared to anonymous nicks). This in turns encourages emotional investment (in the sense that thoughtful people who contribute their expertise know that there're other clever people whom they've actually met listening to them.) The value-add lies, not just the technical stuff behind the initial raison d'etre, but the things that might result from this. For example, there have been two couples who're married partly due to SPUG related opportunities (I myself met my ex-gf from the SPUG IRC.)

The local blogsphere is also on a similar path, as it should be. But there's a difference: the main activity of blogging isn't a sideshow, it's part of the actual show! Bloggers who go for meetups already have done one thing: mass disclosures of their personal lives. Which is what I sense (maybe it's just me), a feeling of respect and honour among thieves that fills the air at Hideout. Or maybe, it's just because I'm a little drunk... So I think this development bodes well for the blogging community. For a start, the amount of free material and wisdom to be had is just quite extraordinary. I've just had a glimpse of RamblingAlcoholic's stuff... I know I'll finish reading his entire blog in the next few days LOL

PS. The lovely cover version of Sade's Your Love Is King is actually not done by Guy Sebastien but by Will Young, found in the soundtrack of Bridget Jones...