Mike Butcher - mbites

I hate blog posts saying sorry for not updating here for a while, but.... sorry for not updating here for a while. I have been busy trying to crank up TechCrunch UK since the re-launch and doing some glamourous-sounding (but hard-working I might add) trips to events abroad, including Web 2 Expo Berlin and Les Web 3 in Paris. And on that note, the fruits of my efforts appear to be paying off. TechCrunch UK is now among the top 20 blogs in Europe:

And I was also recently granted an interview with the [geek world] famous Robert Scoble, reproduced below.

I just need to blog this while it's still in my head. I'm sure others have come to the same conclusion in a more erudite manner, and posted longer pieces. But I'm starting to wonder if the "User Generated Content" revolution, which was supposed to be taking over the world somewhere around about now, may not hit the heights it was predicted to. Why? Because social networking could well take over from where content creation left off. Ok, that is a massive generalisation. Of course that won't happen for all demographics all of the time. But think about it. Even the biggest bloggers of the last 2 years - Robert Scoble, Loic Le Meur etc - are now producing almost as much content and getting possibly more interaction inside social networks than they did out on the wild-web or blogosphere. Of course, I'm referring in large part to the enormous pull of Facebook right now. But I'm also thinking that it's specifically proprietary social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter, which are not open platforms in the way blogs were, that will have this effect. We all have a limited amount of time. If the former Live Journal member or Blogspot Blogger switches to Facebook, then they are going to spend a lot of the time which they used to create content now socially networking (writing on walls, checking mini-feeds, staling people's statuses etc). I'll try and add more to this later...

UPDATE: I added more in my comment below.

Remember back in '07 when you put your whole life online? One day a man opened too many tabs in Firefox spent too long on Facebook and took the Internet down... Life was never the same again. People were forced to print out their blog and hand out pages on the street. Nigeria's spam economy collapsed... (thanks to Valleywag)

Come for brunch with blogger and journalist Mike Butcher, this Wednesday in Soho...

EVENT: Brunch Bites 1.0 (BETA)

Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Time: 10:30am - 12:00pm

Location:

The Breakfast Club, Soho

33 D'Arblay Street
London

Also on Upcoming

Map

Venue:
http://www.thebreakfastclubsoho.com/

Contact: 07720291095

Email: editor@bitesmedia.com

Description:

Into digital media, marketing, music, mobile and Web 2.0? Got a startup?

Come for brunch with blogger and journalist Mike Butcher, mbites.com and Bites Media, and publisher of:

tbites.com
MediaBites.com
MobBites.com
MusicBites.com

A new 'mini network of blogs'.

I'll also be doing some video and audio interviews there.

This event is the first from Bites Media

Julian Bond at Voidstar has a great post on routing all your and your friend's Status updates from Facebook to Twitter using Mario Menti's excellent TwitterFeed service. Now, here's my question. Is this not completely insane? Keeping up with Twitter feeds is hard enough. Adding Facebook status updates would hasten my "Twitter Bankruptcy". At least with Twitter most people tend to keep in the back of their head that at least some of their key followers get Tweets sent direct to their mobiles via SMS. That means Twitter posts - which are also limited to 140 characters - tend to be much more concise than Facebook status updates, which can be even more throwaway that Tweets, if that doesn't sound like an impossibility...

To illustrate, here's is an example of my friends' facebook status updates this morning:

XXXX XXXX is swapping one kind of chaos for another.

one minute ago

XXXX XXXX is pleased that there is finally some sunshine!

7 minutes ago

XXXX XXXX is back once more like the renegade master.

11 minutes ago

XXXX XXXX is in the other only caff on the A4.

30 minutes ago

XXXX XXXX is hoping the weather at 5am this morning holdup for the rest of the week for the folks back home.

44 minutes ago

XXXX XXXX is prodding Drupal with a sensitive implement.

49 minutes ago

XXXX XXXX is in the office.

50 minutes ago

XXXX XXXX is pleased to see that Mike Reid's death is getting billed above Ingmar Bergman's on BBC Online. That will probably change. Right? Runaround!

56 minutes ago

XXXX XXXX is back in the office.

57 minutes ago

XXXX XXXX is in the office.

about an hour ago

What I call 'conversational status' is a great way of just shooting the breeze, but the added element of mobile changes the character of the conversation to be pithier and often far more relevant to location.

Which reminds me of how one Twitter friend of mine recently said he was 'pruning his Twitter friends' down to just those in London. His Twitter conversation wouldn't make any sense otherwise...

It seems to me that something like Wordcamp should be done in the UK. The techies have their BarCamp. Why not something around content? And it doesn't have to be just about WordPress skills.... (I use Drupal for instance).

Perhaps someone could provide a venue? People can showcase their skills/services. And I can learn how to be a better blogger!

I dare say there are a few other people we could bring together to make something happen...

Email me on mike at mbites dot com if you are interested.

How not to approach a blogger (this was sent to me on email). I have not disclosed the names involved so that - maybe - this person doesn't lose their job, as my guess is that this is just naivety on their part:

Hi Mike,

My name is XXXXXXX and I work for XXXXXXX XXXXXXX - an agency that specialises in digital communication.

I've been looking at your blog and I think it is great.

We're currently working with XXXXX XXXXX International to promote the new XXXXXXX film XXXXXXXXXXX due to be released in the UK on the Xth of October 2007 and we are working with online opinion formers to release valuable content and information about this film.

We consider you to be an online opinion former and we would like to invite you to take part in this campaign.

The content, to be released in four different communications, will only be made available to a selected group of sites - yours will be one of them.

We would also like to invite you to the press screening in London on date and venue to be confirmed (likely end of July/beginning of August), or, if it is not convenient for you to travel to London, we will give tickets for you and your family/friends to view the film.

If you value the information and content we send you for XXXXXXXX, you may want further information from us regarding other film titles. If so, we will happily include your site in future campaigns. We will contact you again when our client releases other titles we think you might be interested in. You will only receive valuable and interesting content and invitations to events and screenings.

Please email me back at XXXXXXXXXXXX to let me know if you're interested in taking part in this campaign and receiving some unique and privileged content.

Many thanks

XXXXXX XXXXXXX
Communications Manager

Now I'm sure this person is as bemused as the next PR person about how to approach bloggers. My guess is their boss said "Get some Blog buzz" and the poor person is working through some list they found (possibly a recent edition of PR Week magazine).

But they have clearly not even read this blog, as I never blog about movies. This is the second such overture I've had recently and I think they are increasing.

You're a PR or marketing company worried about social media and blogs? Hey, why not start posing as if you are a customer, extolling the benefits of your clients product! Better still, set up a fake blog and do it there!

Wrong!

Trevor Jeffords, Associate of law firm Eversheds, writes in their latest e80 newsletter:

"Under new laws in the UK, businesses will soon be prevented from "falsely representing oneself as a consumer", meaning that companies will no longer be able to post fake entries on blogs or message boards that imply they are made by customers. In light of the current Web 2.0 trend towards social networking sites that rely heavily on sharing of information and peer-reviews, consumer review websites (such as TripAdvisor) have increased the risk of abuse of this kind.

Such practices have previously been outlawed in the UK by the ASA in adjudications such as that involving talkSPORT radio in 2006 where a representative of the company placed a fake blog entry on a number of football club related sites. However the new law will mean that companies who continue to post fake statements risk facing both civil proceedings and criminal prosecution. The law will be enforced by the Office of Fair Trading and the Trading Standards Office who will have the power to apply for enforcement orders, orders for the disclosure of information and injunctions as well as being able to bring criminal prosecutions against an offending company.

The new law is part of the EU Directive on Unfair Business-to-Consumer Commercial Practices (2005/29/EC) aimed at obliging businesses not to mislead consumers. The exact date that this law will come into force is uncertain. The Directive states that member countries should apply measures enforcing its provisions by 12 December 2007, but the DTI has advised that Regulations implementing this Directive will come into force in the UK by April 2008. Companies should note that the Directive seems to create a strict liability because it will not be necessary to prove that there has been any actual loss or damage, that the company was negligent or that the company intended to commit an unfair commercial practice.

In the light of this new legislation, companies should ensure that they do not use fake blogs, message boards or other word-of-mouth campaigns as a marketing tool. It is important that they also inform employees not to post such statements because they could potentially be interpreted as having been made on behalf of the company."

This is thin stuff. "There is increasing buzz around buzz." Oh, come on. You guys need to realise that online identity in the form of a MySpace or Facebook profile is as much content as anything someone might 'upload'. Furthermore, microblogging a la Twitter is the tip of the ice-burg. When 'uploaders' include those who are happy to blog in just 140 characters (many more than the blessed 8% I daresay), that's when you will see what social media is really capable of. I expect better from Agency.com.

Justin Kirby over at dmc.co.uk has created a new site around how the theory and methodology of "Connected Marketing" is evolving and also being put into practice. He's published a series of new podcast interviews for the site including ones on "Open Innovation, Trends and Engagement" marketing. Check it out.

This says it all really.

PLEASE NOTE: Before you read the below post, here is the context: It was written after a very difficult few days following the collapse of the TechCrunch UK franchise in December 2006 due to the falling out of franchisee Sam Sethi, who I was working with, and TechCrunch owner Mike Arrington. It was also a time when my wife was being treated for cancer. The wider context is this: I started my own blog about Web 2.0 and startups in 2006 (tbites.com), but later joined TechCrunch UK with Sam Sethi. Despite promising that there was advertising money to be had in this franchise I was never paid a cent by him for several months. Just as this was making future prospects difficult he fell out with Arrington over his blogging of the Le Web conference. Annoyed with Arrington's lack of backing of a UK colleague I then worked on a new TechCrunch competitor, Vecosys.com, with Sethi for 4 months while my wife was on Chemotherapy, hoping, all the while, that Sethi and I would secure financing for the idea. We didn’t. Unable to continue working with Sethi on such a precarious basis I parted ways with him to stay at home and help my wife and two children. Sethi went off and launched Blognation.com in mid-2007, a global technology startup blog for 25+ other bloggers. In December of that year he was later accused by two of his main US bloggers of not paying wages, contracts or expenses despite re-assurances that he would and that BlogNation was 'days' from securing funding. Sethi denied all of these accusations. Meanwhile, I was not involved in all that. I earnt almost nothing during this time. My wife recovered fully. By August 2007 my annoyance with Mike Arrington had dissipated and we had conversed about re-starting TechCrunch UK as a proper arm of TechCrunch, not a franchise. I duly re-launched it, and at the time of writing I am happy to say that it is going very well.

This is an open letter to Mike Arrington, founder of TechCrunch, from me in my capacity as the former co-editor of TechCrunch UK & Ireland. It is written in light of the events surrounding Le Web 3 and the firing of my co-editor Sam Sethi.

(If you support this view, please Digg it, thanks)

Mike

Please take this as - for what it's worth - my formal resignation from TechCrunch UK & Ireland. Since I was locked out of the blog with no warning on Wednesday anyway, this is really just a formality. (I am somewhat reminded of times in the past when proprietors have locked the gates to journalists whose copy they did not approve of, but perhaps that is a too grandiose an analogy).

I am sorry it has come to this, but I think my position is untenable given what's happened.

To be clear, I think your decision to “fire” Sam was wrong, and I plan to say so on my blog with this letter. I feel that this is a case of censorship and by suggesting we remove Loïc Le Meur's “asshole” comment from TechCrunch UK you took away from him the opportunity - once his inflammatory comment was out there and immediately captured around the web - to backtrack and apologise and join the conversation about how he was going to improve Le Web 3 next year. If he had done so, the whole incident would have been dismissed and probably forgotten as a rash comment after a badly received conference. We're all grown-ups after-all.

You asked my colleague and co-editor Sam Sethi to remove the comment in what appeared to be a personal favour to Le Meur (given TechCrunch had no contractual or financial involvement in Le Web 3) and any other comments referring to Le Meur's comment.

By this stage that was going to be hard. A lot of people had now captured Le Meur's explosive comment and commented on it themselves, not just on TechCrunch UK but on their own blogs.

What were we going to do? Delete the whole web?

Knowing that Le Meur's comment was now very much “out there”, Sam's following post was designed to “put his money where his mouth was” and explain his position after being called an asshole. In that context he had to reference Le Meur's comment otherwise the post wouldn't have made any sense.

When this post appeared, Le Meur had already had a long time to retract or at least explain, and he would have been alerted about the comments about his comment via email. As one of France's biggest bloggers, he ought to know the score.

In the “/putting-my-money-where-my-mouth-is” post Sam was also 'stepping up to the plate' and saying if the Web community deems a TCUK event as bad then 'call us out on it', by all means, just as Le Web 3 had been criticised. As Bomega.com said of this mixing of Le Meur's comment and the announcement of a TCUK event, “It is less than elegant but I wouldn’t say it is enough to fire someone.”

But that post was removed by you.

And readers denied the opportunity to comment.

However, here is the Google cache of the, now deleted, post.

In this, Sam also encouraged Le Meur to enter the debate about Le Web 3 by posting on his own blog. Sam wrote that if - after being called an asshole - Loic could also step up to the plate and argue why the event was good, and convince the annoyed attendees and the blogger community, he would apologise for his, pretty mild, criticism.

“But equally”, Sam wrote, “if you feel that you may have got it wrong, even slightly, then I guess you have the opportunity to do the same on your own blog and to explain why the agenda was hijacked by French politicians?”

You say in Crunchnotes that in this post Sam ignored Le Meur's apology to Sam over email. But while the post did have some irony and gentle ribbing of Le Meur, Sam did say: “I have no doubt that Loic and his team worked really hard and I congratulate them for their superb organisation, speaker roster, sponsors and attendee list”. He also said “I fully understand that Loic must have felt totally pissed off with my post but all I said was what many people spoke to me about in the corridors at the event.” This, to me, does not sound like Sam was ignoring Le Meur's apology to him.

However, it's also emerged that (and this is something I was going to write up on TCUK&I, but now can't) that Le Meur fully engineered the “surprise” appearance of Nicolas Sarkozy, French presidential candidate, thus hijacking his own conference for what appears to be political ends. On that revelation alone, Le Meur should be wary of leveling insults at others.

As regards the TechCrunch UK events. I understand you are a busy man, but the ideas about events we have promoted on TCUK for weeks now should not have come as a surprise to you. This was an attempt to build the business here not just as a franchise in the UK but it also would have benefited the TechCrunch US brand, obviously. Sam wasn't doing it to “futher his own business interests” [sic.] as you say in CrunchNotes. You own the brand. We don't.

Again, on Crunchnotes you say our event plans “were not specifically approved.” Well, a) this was supposed to be a franchise operation, not two employees with you as line manager and b) there are a lot of things we have done to make TCUK successful and until now you didn't seem to object to other public announcements about events (or even communicate at all about them, I might add. We thought you trusted us to get on with the job, and we did, but our email inbox from you about anything we were doing is pretty bare).

I also disagree with you in your view that it is unethical to criticise a competitor event, when it has already been trashed far more roundly by others. I would say it is far more unethical to ignore the sentiment of one's readers - who's views are plain to see - and whitewash one's editorial coverage, than massage it into a limp, inaccurate article for the sake of a favour. In this case a favour to a conference organiser.

Sam's last and final post (again, captured by bloggers) was just an attempt to say he was leaving, given that he had been summarily dismissed by you (can you dismiss a franchisee?) with wafer-thin due process. After such an immediate firing, I think you owed him that last opportunity.

But you removed that post as well.

This made the whole thing even more interesting to people with RSS readers, long memories and blogs. This is Blogging 101, surely?

Now, there are a couple of very interesting themes here, which I won't level at your door, but would make great articles. The first is the gradual emergence of a kind of 'cigar-chomping, controlling proprietor' behaviour amongst some of the most successful blogs. I'm thinking “Citizien Kane 2.0” here. The second is the “Read/Write... and Delete Web” where blogging and user generated content is coming under attack from those who want to control or lock down the conversation. Now that I find myself free, I may well pitch them to a newspaper or magazine. Or just blog them.

Anyway, in closing let me say thanks for letting Sam and I attempt to build TechCrunch UK & Ireland. It's become clear there was a space for this kind of coverage in the UK. I worked hard to achieve this success, with Sam. I was even still posting at 2am on Tuesday night prior to my wife going into hospital for cancer treatment, a fact which has prevented me from responding more fully until now.

You will be interested to know that the traffic to TechCrunch UK & Ireland has gone up about five times over the last few days - though I guess you would consider this to be for the wrong reasons. As someone who has been in the media business for a while, I would say an editor who has increased circulation by that much - without causing world war three or faking the story - is usually worth keeping, not firing. (Here are the Technorati stats).

Lastly, let me just say that I do not wish to make this personal.

I just beg to differ with you, that's all.

Regards

Mike Butcher
(Former) Co-Editor
TechCrunch UK & Ireland
British Cell: (+44) 77 2029 1095
Skype: mikegbutcher
Blog: http://mbites.com

Azeem has an interesting post about how Digg has now overtaken Cnet.

Labours former Chief Spinmiester is blogging about the World cup on Labour's web site. Now I've seen everything.

But get a load of these horrendours URLs:

http://www.labour.org.uk/blog/index.php?id=97&tx_
ttnews[tt_news]=171&tx_ttnews[year]=2006&tx_ttnews
[month]=06&tx_ttnews[day]=08&cHash=64db4ea2b0

Call that a permalink? Not very Web 2.0 Alistair...

Richard Dreyfuss, Actor and Activist, spoke on "Media and Civic Discourse"

Dreyfus efectively criticised the MSM (mainstream media) for reacting too quickly to events without any thought or substance. "We transmit chapter headings but no chapter. We do not rewards. Broadcast gives only visual no text. There is no details. Our relationship with the Islamic world, our ability to be self righteous are all transmitted by image. We cannot overlook the older problems. If we speak for western civ then we must speak for dissent and debate. But we don't honour it or allow it. We must have civility in the political debate. We have replaced it with melodrama. If you interrupt or are patronsing you can't hear what they they say. No matter how sophisticated the technology, if you insist on one view and not allow others then the technology simply allows that mocking faster and more thoroughly."

Mashup 2.0! Get it? Actually this blog post was created live tonight (hence typos etc) at the second London Mashup event which was all about "'Personal Publishing, beyond blogging".

First speaker
As the main organiser Simon Grice gets to talk at the event but also happens to have founded Midentity.com.

He talked about "Personal Publishing" ( he used Dick Hardt's style of presenting which is basically to flash words and pictures up on the screen - actually I've done this before but without the pictures - much nastier!).

So Grice reckons blogging changed the media business - which is no longer 'the big cheese.' So far, so predictable...

People can now publish, store and link. No big trad media firms have (normally) launched user blogs (but now BBC is investing 110m quid into blogs). ITV bought Friends Reunited, Murdoch bought MySpace blah blah. Oh, and E-Tribes runs blogs.

He thinks it's about what he defines as 'personal publishing', not blogging. In this category falls things like user reviews on Amazon, Craigslist, TripAdvisor.com, and user ratings etc. (I think he's wrong - these people don't own media from which they profit, so therefore they are not publishers, just contributors - if powerful ones en masse - there is also the issue of whether they own the copyright).

Most people wouldn't consider themselves as bloggers, but most people create content in the form of pictures, calendar events, comments on sites, etc. (Actually his theory sounds very similiar to Evan Williams' "casual content").

Ideally people would publish from one place and then send it to the place they want it to go, rather than have to log in to various sites. Obviously mobiles could be useful for all this.

Second Speaker
Jamie Kantrowitz SVP Marketing and Content for MySpace (who have landed in London recently) talked about ' the hard to reach 14-30 year olds' on MySpace.com

She says:

MySpace is a place where people Express themselves, connect with Friends and discover popular culture.

They debut albums for artists (hold on, didn't AOL do this first?). They do classifieds, etc. (go see the site).

"We don't allow people to publish to other places yet..."

They are doing lots of other things like viral videos (a YouTube rippoff? Surely not), and comedian sections.

They 'connect brands to the audience' (read: advertising). However, they don't 'veil' advertising, which is probably why it still exists for this marketing savvy audience.

MySpace now has 70m users.

In the UK they have 2.3m registered users (15,000 users a day) here - hence why they have turned up in London. 16-34 age groups. 21 min per session average usage among users. They claim it's the 8th highest trafficked site in the UK. Hmnnnn.....

They've doubled in size in under a year, and are aiming for 98m users in a couple or so.

[Part of the success is down to people's vanity (my words!).] The 'user profile' is now a metaphor for their room/apartment they spend hours dressing it up.

The 'MySpace generation' has grown up with choice and customisation (time shifting content in iPods, TV etc), social networking online, and is comfortable with creating their own content. And it's no longer geeky to network online or blog or listen to podcasts. For this demographic, it's mainstream.

Q&A

"We've grown twice as fast since we were acquired by The Man" - Kantrowitz on the lack of user backlash since Murdoch bought MySpace.

Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango: Should we trust bloggers "No" (it's too easy to blog basically, of course).

Tom Bureau, CNet publisher: "We run a lot of highly regarded publishing sites and the research says our products are trusted more than many old media outlets. So users are becoming very canny about what they see on the web. With blogging, there's general rule of thumb that blogging is about opinion not news and fact, but the youthful demographic is very savvy about blogs."

Yoz (from the audience): "Urban Myths archives like Snopes show people still circulate urban myths, but it's about having the skills to work out what's true."

Kantrowitz: "You can't overthink it. A lot of MySpace is entertainment. Some people do it seriously but it won't produce the next Matt Drudge. It's a place to put your life online very simply, so it serves its function. NewsCorp is committed to protecting the brand experience of MySpace - but at the end of the day we're a business. We'd say we are a trusted network."

On a show of hands most people at the event said MySpace was a good buy for Murdoch, apart from Paul Fisher from First Capital who said "where's the business and where's the money?"

Mark Canter from Broadband Mechanics weighed in with thoughts about 'structured blogging'. He reckons structured content, containing individual pieces, permalinks, event information etc. Blogging slams all that into one giant text block, but he reckons let's take that flat text and structure it so that it becomes more searchable etc. [Yeah, because people so want to blog in a structured manner as they have SO much time...]

Someone in the audience pointed out that free-tagging is not very structured. But Grice came back with the point that this is being 'worked on' by companies. (He means microformats I think? - Meetup, Upcoming,org)

Kantrowitz said MySpace is being attacked by internal hackers all the time to see if they can hack into it - like, doh! - and talked about how MySpace would probably not get into Open Source (ie structured blogging). She added that over a third of the company is involved in making the site safe (so no naughty pictures etc etc). Also people try to create fake Britney profiles all the time - MySpace takes down copyrighted material - of course they admit it might be "good for viral marketing..."

[At this point my powerbook battery died - Macs eh? - however, I took some notes in "bits" (on paper) so I'll post those later].

As an addendum to the podcast today about corporate blogging, I interviewed Piers Fawkes (pictured) of the New York-based PSFK web sites, which track trends and brands online.

The mbites.com podcast this week looked at the relatively new phenomenon (at least in the UK) of corporate blogging: blogs run by firms and organisations both as a communications exercise and as a kind of customer relationship thing. We also touched on blogging 'as publishing'.

The guests (pictured above) were Tim Houghton, managing director of New Media Intelligence, and Dana Gornitzki, editorial consultant, journalist and contributor to the The Globe and Mail newspaper.

Download the MP3 file below (approx 14.5MB, 15 minutes long) or subscribe to the podcast feed and download it automatically into your favourite podcasting software and/or mobile media player device (ok, iPod then) , or even subscribe direct from iTunes.

If you'd like to be a guest on the next mbites Podcast, where we'll be documenting some of the most interesting new developments in digital and mobile media, contact Mike Butcher.

Sometimes I am contacted by people who ask me to link to them and if I get time, and it seems OK, I will. Hence: The new blog from the editor of Brand Republic. Meanwhile, here's Ajit Jaokar's and here's Helen Keegan's (where a bunch of cool mobile links reside today).

I went to Blogging For business yesterday. The event itself was well programmed, well thought out and cleverly promoted both by blogs and by the stirling efforts of organiser Matt Yeomans and Bernhard Warner (and conference firm Retail Events).

Canicrash.org is a new wiki site set up so that 'entrpereneur bloggers' visiting abroad can hook up with other bloggers to stay on a sofa. Quoting:

"Can I crash?" is a project of Toothless Tiger initiated by Henriette Weber Andersen - who basically is a young female who is tired of busting her entrepreneurial budget when there is things (dinners, conferences, vacations) in other countries (or cities) she wants to attend. So this young female is thinking that if she opens her house to fellow bloggers (after following the guidelines) when they are looking for a place to stay in Copenhagen or Denmark - maybe some other bloggers will open their house to her (or other bloggers again) in other countries - that#039s the idea, this is how we are going to try out if it works in practice."

I'm developing an event for New Media Knowledge on the new area of IPTV (Internet Protocol TV) on 25th May. I'll be looking for speakers, participants, delegates and sponsors, so get in touch if you fall into any of those categories.

This week Mbites.com hosted its latest "Bitecast", featuring two guests: Alfie Dennen (left), co-founder of Moblog UK and Chris Skinner (right), co-founder of Podcast User Magazine.

Download the MP3 file here (approx 19MB, 20 minutes long) or subscribe to the podcast feed and download it automatically into your favourite podcasting software and/or mobile media player device.

"They stole our revolution. Now We're stealing it back". So runs the tagline at the end of the weekly email newsletter for technology geeks, NTK.net. And although the slogan has been running since 1997, in 2006 the slogan has never been more appropriate. Standing outside a cold London town hall, watching hordes of mostly fresh-faced young men (I counted six women among 800) file in to a conference on the future of web applications, "stealing back the revolution" feels like an appropriate phrase. It's a long way from an autumnal day in San Francisco, Oct 2004. But was this dawning of the mythical "Web 2.0" movement in the UK, or another false dawn for the Uk internet industry?

Pissed off that Google is censoring results? Then start typing badly. Blogger Paul Boutin found that image searches for Tiananmen throw up innocuous images of fountains and temples. But type in Tianenmen, or some other close mispelling and you see tanks and protesters... With any luck Google will be able to argue that it doesn't have to control or censor mispellings. Well, I hope it takes that line, but these days you never know...

One person I spoke here to estimated there are now 5,000 daily Swedish blogs, although it's in online communities that Swedes have largely collected, somewhat reflecting the left-leaning community spirit of the culture which grew out of its 60s socialist roots.

At some point there'll be a more detailed report on my findings in Scandinavia, but for now, here's a smattering of some of the people I've been talking to and the information I've gathered on the ground in Stockholm, Helsinki and Tallin (Estonia).

Tim Berners Lee has started a blog and his first post had 455 comments! (And it appears to be in Drupal which also powers mbites.com)

"I'm a dinosaur, part of a shrinking generation of daily print newspaper readers who likely will disappear in a few decades. And we're being replaced by folks who "consume media" through the use of RSS feeders, Web portals and blogs."