In Palo Alto for the NewComm Forum. The event is being organised by the Society for New Communications Research and in particular by Elizabeth Albrycht and the NewComm blogzine’s Jen McClure. The idea of the conference is to promote best practice and provide a forum for research on new communications technologies. There are speakers from a number of the key blogging and communications companies and a lot of new thinking is promised. This is going to be a much blogged event, so here are some highlights from the show so far (lunchtime on day one).

Rebecca Blood (from the keynote):

“People come to blogging and bring their own perspectives and they see what they want to see. Knowledge management experts see it as a knowledge management tool and refer to it as “Small KM” … PR and marketing people talk about it as the “new communications”, journalists see bloggers as would-be journalists. I prefer to talk about “participatory media” …

“Blogging has blurred the lines between professionals and amateurs. On the web, consumers become contributors …

“I remember my grandmother owned a mandolin. It was no longer played, because after the era of radio, people stopped making their own music. We stopped doing it ourselves and became consumers. Now we are getting back to the era of doing it ourselves …

“I have heard it called ‘mass amateurisation’. The ‘writeable web’. A massive multi-player online focus group which is online 24/7.”

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