WhatISee

Starting off with Jason Calcanis and Nick Denton, moderator Jeff Jarvis tried to get it off to a rolicking start. While Nick and Jason alternated between admiring and then slagging each other, I believe Nick came off the best. Jason still has the sales pitch that I remember from him back in the day. Nick seemed like someone who was happy to pay the bills and have fun. I don't agree with him on the topic of deliberately pushing buttons. Making gawker.com and gizmodo Not Safe For Work seems counterproductive for the audience as much as the advertisers. Was the word choice or product choice (which was definitely in the quirky/humorous side) really that important? As for Jason, he got caught out by the whole investor point (zing! one point for Denton) and then went on about having 500 blogs within the next few years.

We then had the technology team come up. In this deathmatch, Anil Dash reigned supreme. He handled all of Meg "Megnut" Hourihan's comments easily and kept on message. Unlike Jason, he gave her a chance to speak without pushing his own products too much. I would be curious why Megan left the project she's been working on, just when it's been released. Her comments about simplicity were interesting, but I have to go with Anil. People tend to buy the product with the most capability, as long as the cost/difficulty isn't too high.

The third round with Lockhart Steele, Choire Sicha and of course Jen Chung was a mixed bag. While everyone gave as good as they got, I didn't sense a clear winner. It was nice to put faces against some of the names. If anything, I'd have to say a tie between Jen and Choire.

Afterwards, we found out three things about Jake. First, from his web site, it appears he wears either the gothamist t-shirt or this striped thing and he wears them a LOT. He claims that these are two different striped shirts, but you be the judge. Hey, he even has the same drink!

Second, Jason has a habit of poaching the MVP's from other teams. Perhaps Jake should start worrying a bit....

With two full house events at the Apple Store, Jake clearly knows how to get the word out and pack in the crowd (especially on a rainy night). Perhaps there's a business model here? :)

As for me, I would have been more interested in hearing about features people are looking for, ways of leveraging the data, and more about how businesses will be using blogs. I was surprised no one brought up Microsoft's beginning steps in this area, giving developers and program managers an external presence. It all comes down to the quality of the content and those people should have a lot to say. It won't drive advertising revenue, but it will help sell Microsoft's vision which leads directly to sales. Why involve ad agencies and the media at all?

I'd also like to see more thought on the twin axis of public/private blogs as well as branded/anonymous blogs. I was interested when hmm, Meg? mentioned the best blogs are ones built on shared relationships between people with similiar interests.