As I mentioned the other day, I was in San Francisco this week speaking at a (non-web related) conference.  I was staying at The Palace, which coincidentally happened to be the location of the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Summit.

I didn’t attend any of the presentations, but I did wander around the hallway and foyer outside the meeting rooms.  It looked like there were a few hundred people there- and a lot of socializing occurred in between and after the presentations.

I only had one O’Reilly employee ask me if I was an attendee, and that was when I inadvertently wandered too close to a meeting room where some big presentation must have been in progress.  Since I was staying at the hotel, there wasn’t much they could do to keep me from walking around, but I’m certain there were other non-attendees socializing and I didn’t see anyone get booted.

While I was wandering around, I kept wishing peoples’ names would appear above their heads in Second Life fashion, since I know a lot more people I blog around with by name than by face.  I’m sure I walked right by other people I know from the blogosphere, without even knowing it (those around the neck nametags are hard to read and have a habit of getting turned around).

But I did get to meet a bunch of people, including Robert Scoble, Stowe Boyd and Mike Arrington.  It was a truly serendipitous opportunity for me, as a guy from Texas, to meet in person some people I know a little via the blogosphere.

Best of all, I had a long and good conversation with Steve Gillmor.  We continued the conversation that began around this post.  I restated my apology in person and we talked about a lot of stuff- blogging, geography, podcasting, etc.  He explained his thoughts on links to me and, while I don’t know how to fix it, it’s hard to argue with his logic that there is a problem with the status quo.

Without belaboring the point, let me say two more things about these encounters.

First, while you can get to know someone reasonably well via blogging, email, etc., what you know is just the tip of the iceberg.  There is a lot more to a person than what he or she writes on a blog.  I was nosing around this issue in the comments to my earlier post I mentioned above, but meeting these guys in person, particularly Steve, really drove that point home.

Second, I’m starting to think that geography may not be as big of an obstacle to tech-related blogging as I have long thought.  I talked to a bunch of other people out there (many of whose names I don’t remember).  Quite a few of them of them (I’d say less than half, but close) knew about Newsome.Org- and some of them told me they subscribe to my feed.

Having said that, I think it’s still good to shake hands with someone and look them in the eye.  I’m really glad I had a chance to meet a few other bloggers.

I can’t speak for what went on inside the presentations, but the scene outside was pretty neat to experience.

I’m in San Francisco to give a speech at a (non-web) conference tomorrow.

I’m staying at The Palace, which, completely coincidentally, happens to be the site of the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Summit. That conference starts with a reception tonight and, based on a schedule I saw, ends on Thursday.

I’m going to hang around near the festivities for an hour or so out of curiosity, and then head over to the Tadich Grill for dinner.

It will be interesting to see if I recognize anyone.

Depending on when they kick me out, I may have more to report later.

I got busy at work a couple of weeks ago and was too worn out to write anything when I got home.  A few days became a week, and then another.

In the meantime, I realized something.  I didn’t really miss it much.  The easy decision became to not blog.  After all, it will be there tomorrow.

I scanned, but did not read, my RSS feeds.  Everybody was talking about the same thing.  Most of it was boring from the first post.  All of it seemed very repetitive.

All of this caused me to reexamine my motives for blogging.  As I’ve said before, for me it’s about conversation and learning.  I did get some great tips Photoshop tips from Richard, Steve and Thomas.  Many thanks guys.  That part of the blogging experience still works for me.

But blogging as a conversational medium is feeling extremely inefficient.  Real conversations are conducted in real time.  Blogging, on the other hand, often seems like a bunch of people independently throwing rocks into the air.  Sometime those rocks collide and the resulting sparks look like conversation.

The question becomes, do the occasional sparks make up for the millions of other rocks that thud to the ground untouched?

I don’t know.

I suspect blogging like many things is cyclical.  Lately I am bored with it.  Next week or next month I may be excited again by the blogosphere.

I bet there are a lot of other people who run hot and cold on blogging.  All of this makes me really admire those whose zeal for posting never seems to ebb.

I hope I get zealous again.

Only time will tell.