With their laptops open, blogs abuzz and hand-held cameras streaming live video to the Internet, hundreds of technology entrepreneurs and enthusiasts gathered recently in Seattle to talk about the present and future of the online world.
But the opening day of this year’s Gnomedex conference was less about what’s next and more about doing something meaningful with whatever it is.
“If you bloggers organize and attach yourself like leeches to specific issues, organizations, challenges, whatever, you will be the intelligence Minutemen of this century,” said one speaker, Robert Steele, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer and, as he described himself, “the world’s most ticked-off end user.”
“The power is in your hands,” Steele added. “There aren’t enough guns to kill us all, and Halliburton can’t build the jails fast enough to keep us down.”
That was perhaps the most radical message of the day, but it reflected a common theme of using technology for some larger purpose.
Thinking creatively
Writer and marketer Darren Barefoot urged the crowd to use technology to come up with creative solutions to social problems. And Ronni Bennett, who writes a blog about aging at timegoesby.net, talked about the importance of making computers and software more accessible to older people.
“This is going to benefit everybody — even you young people — because one day you’re going to get older,” she said. “You’re going to be old for a long time.”
When entrepreneur Justin Kan described how he came to constantly broadcast live video of his life on the Internet, he was asked about the possibility of using the same concept to bring more attention to the crisis in Darfur.
“This conference seems to have changed from being about new and shiny objects to being more about what are we going to do with all this stuff, and how do we make a difference in terms of technology,” said Steve Gillmor, a technology commentator, during an onstage edition of his online video show.
Gnomedex, in its seventh year, was started by Chris Pirillo, the Internet entrepreneur who runs the Lockergnome technology site. The conference has been held in Seattle for the past three years. Pirillo and his wife, Ponzi, organize the conference, which draws people from around the country, plus some international attendees.
No easy answers
Attendees this year discussed a variety of positive trends — commenting, for example, on how politicians are becoming increasingly responsive to blog posts.
But they also discussed problems, including challenges of personal privacy at a time when people are putting so much information and personal media online. Kan, who wears a camera on a hat, streaming live to the Web, said he doesn’t have a solution for the people he meets who are uncomfortable with that.
“Yeah, that’s definitely a thing,” Kan said, when asked about the privacy issue. “There’s no easy answer. I try to inform people.”
Jason Calacanis, the Internet entrepreneur who sold his Weblogs Inc. to AOL, talked about the problems associated with comments on blogs.
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“What we do in the blogosphere is like being at Carnegie Hall, and somebody does this incredible, epic performance onstage, and then we say, ‘Will the five stupidest, drunkest, mentally disabled people come onstage and now critique the virtuoso performance?'” he said. “They all get the same amount of billing and time.”
There was broader attention on the Gnomedex conference last year because it was keynoted by John Edwards, now a Democratic presidential candidate.
But inside the tech industry, in particular, the two-day conference is widely respected for its candid conversations and relative lack of product plugs. People are willing to pay as much as $499 to attend.