Rather than rely on romantic intuition (which Messina all but admits horribly failed him in his last relationship with fellow conference-speaking professional Tara Hunt), the two are now trying to suss out behavioral patterns that might indicate a cooling of interest. How do they do it? With websites that just happen to be eager for publicity.

In tracking everything they do in sites like BaseCamp, BrightKite and Bedpost, the new couple cultivates an early-adopter mystique. Bedpost even allows them to quantitatively analyze the frequency, duration and quality of their naughty bits-mingling. How romantic!

The heart wants what it wants. And in Messina's case? Despite the news hook here being privacy, what his heart really wants is publicity.

(Photos by Jyri Engestrom and César Astudillo)

Leave aside having a fairly public former couple as the face of their business. It's not clear how Hookupdigits believes they'll turn a profit. One of the players behind the site contacted me offering me "rev share" if I "really loved it." A rev share of what? The Google AdSense ads overdecorating the site?

It's a shame that those who would most benefit from Hookupdigits — Internet sex workers and their clients — are exactly the people Hookupdigits can't overtly market to, maybe for fear of being heavily surveilled by law enforcement. What will shut them down won't be police involvement, but lack of a user base. There are still far more people meeting through online dating sites who want to swap real phone numbers before they share anything else — as a sign of mutual trust. Call it old-fashioned. At least if you share your real cell number, you can text your good time, too.

With openness comes vulnerability. Vulnerability in the sense of: ‘I’ve ripped my ribcage open for you to see my heart and if you reject it, I think I’ll die.’ And with that level of vulnerability I didn’t notice it happen, but a great deal of defensiveness set in. And it’s really effected many of my relationships.

It plays itself out in really destructive ways such as:

* Setting unattainably high expectations and then being highly critical when not met.
* Instead of listening and having a normal discussion, shutting down completely in angry defensiveness.
* Walking away from several professional opportunities because I didn’t think they ‘appreciated’ me.
* General paranoia in the form of, “Everyone thinks I’m a space case” kind of garbage.

Tara Hunt, Citizen Space’s 35-year-old cofounder and de facto camp counselor. Chris Messina. Blond, bespectacled, and borderline brilliant, the 27-year-old exudes a nerdy charisma. In a world not known for its epic romances, ChrisandTara = Web 2.0’s Brangelina. No one ever said living an open-source life would be easy. Hunt and Messina: open not in a exhibitionist way—posts weren’t sexually explicit —but to make a philosophical point. In their work-obsessed world, the business partnership Hunt and Messina built seemed especially romantic. Messina/Hunt’s blog. “And even after working at it for some time, we finally decided today to end our romantic relationship.” “Breakup 2.0." Most common reaction: “*hugs*." The devastated Hunt: "i want / to be touched again / really touched / not poked or messaged or emailed / touched." The need to disentangle their personal and professional relationships had become obvious. Messina: “Information should be open and free and available. Some things should be private.” A glorious reminder.

(Photo by Adactio/Flickr)

MashPit III: Tuesday 10-5
Made by: "Pinko Marketing" evangelist Tara Hunt; designer Chris Messina; Technorati coder Tantek Celik
Gist: Coders make mashups of their favorite Internet tools
Attendance: About 22 people as of 11 AM, room for more
People to meet: Tantek Celik, Chief Technologist for blog-tracking startup Technorati and king of Microformats (meet him again at Supernova)
People to avoid: Kevin Burton, because he's not allowed to talk until he sells his startup.
Fringe benefit: Free Starbucks and pastries, unless you'd rather watch the live video feed.

Supernova 2006: Wednesday to Friday
Gist: Speakers like Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Technorati founder Dave Sifry, and Yahoo Senior VP Usama Fayyad speak about the business of technology. But you're here for the networking.
Attendance: Several hundred geeks and wonks hailing from Wired Magazine, Microsoft, Plaxo, and other places you want to get hired
People to meet: Kyle Brinkman, co-founder of MySpace, to ask if he's grown up and joined Facebook yet
People to avoid: The Ponytail (and Jon Schwartz, the interim Sun CEO attached to it)
Fringe benefit: Have fun drawing six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon maps connecting all the panelists — "So he's from Technorati, and she's on Technorati's board, but she also used to work for Sun, where this other guy works after leaving Microsoft...and these two are totally sleeping together."

Bloggercon IV: Thursday night to Saturday evening
Gist: Bloggers like RSS innovator Dave Winer and Gnomedex conference founder Chris Pirillo discuss blogging, how to make money from it, and how to win elections with it — things that bloggers currently suck at
Attendance: Capped at 125, with a long waiting list
People to meet: MAKE Magazine blogger Phil Torrone, man of many tech toys (jammers! robots! LEDs!)
People to avoid: Winer — which might be hard, since it's his conference
Fringe benefit: Winer declared the whole conference "on the record." Exploit this every time you overhear a whisper.

BarCamp: Friday to Sunday
Gist: Much bigger, funner version of MashPit — one of many BarCamp coding and collaboration events held around the world. Hosted by Microsoft, who really wants to prove how indie they are
Attendance: Room for 250, with 204 signed up so far
People to meet: Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera, if only to ask whether he and roommate Michael Arrington really have a "Tech-cave" and "Tech-mobile" in the basement
People to avoid: Anyone with a podcast microphone
Fringe benefit: Brag about getting invited to O'Reilly Media's Foo Camp, so "I just thought I'd drop by to see the little people."

Why to believe it: The Pinko Marketing pundit is clearly on her way to her own brand, seminar series, book club, and Pinko Diet Program.

Why not to believe it: She's still blogging about Riya as if she's on board for years to come.

Why to believe it: The fame, baby, the fame!

Why not to believe it: Wouldn't her boyfriend Chris just get all the credit?

I didn't think that I'd come to resent the question "What's your business model?" [...] While a relevant question with the appropriate disclosure of intent [...], too often it's used as a yardstick for measuring whether someone is worth talking to, if at all — an unfortunate vestige of the old capitalist elite.

"The old capitalist elite." Is he going by the Party History Book now?

Wait, actually, what's Chris's business model for what? He quit working for the browser makers at Flock, his position with development company Adaptive Path doesn't earn a mention on the relevant web page, and his client Mozes is doomed. Is this boy the incarnation of built-to-flip?

What's your community model? [Chris Messina]

This past weekend, Chris and I (as well as a huge number of other people) were behind a very successful WineCamp, yet, when reported by the media, Chris was the only one mentioned as being behind it.

Funny, Tara, that sounds familiar. Kinda like Fost's note before heading to Winecamp:

The event is part of Chris Messina's Bar Camp un-conferences.

Oh really, Dan? So Barcamp's founding fathers —

Andy Smith (back left), Ryan King (back right), Tantek Celik (front left), Matt Mullenweg (front right), and the Eris Stassi (founding mother, not pictured) — Chris (center, squinting) didn't mention them when you fact-checked with him?

You...you did fact-check about Barcamp, right? I hear fact-checking separates real journalists from unreliable blogs like Valleywag.

Sometimes, being a PiC really sucks [Tara Hunt]
TECH CHRONICLES [Dan Fost at SF Chronicle]
Photo: BarCampPlanners, where are you now? [Ryan King on Flickr via the ryan king]

Just because a conference has no organized agenda and no featured speakers doesn't mean it will devolve into chaos. Instead, groups formed instantly with verve and enthusiasm, and discussions ranged from highly geeky topics like the Drupal open source software to how to help nonprofits use technology.

Maybe I'm lowbrow, but normal people don't call that a successful conference. They call it a lousy camping trip.

Survivor: Winecamp [Dan Fost at SF Gate]
Photo: Wine Camp Calaveras [Tara Hunt on Flickr]

• Thursday night: The bigshots and crackpots of consumer tech journalism wish Register journalist Andrew Orlowski a warm goodbye at the Edinburgh Castle Pub. Mosey up to the NYT's John Markoff and order Mac fanboy-baiter John C. Dvorak a drink — when he's really drunk, Dvorak gets totally coherent. [Dvorak.org/Orlowski]
• Thursday night: Attendees at tonight's wine tasting in Redwood City include Brad the LiveJournal founder, Hugh the business card cartoonist, and Niniane the Google blogger. I'm cancelling (gotta wish Orlowski goodbye, right?), so e-mail Kai Chang to try for my spot on the guest list. [Evite]
• Friday through Sunday: As previously pimped here, it's Winecamp! Register for 60 bucks, and that's just to pay for the food. The business plan: After the crowd gets drunk on free wine, organizer Chris Messina converts everyone to Scientology. [Winecamp]

37 Signals software zen mastah Jason Fried is shutting down a blog thread somewhere. Last spotted turning this comment thread into a ghost town. Last comment before the thread got wiped: "I am betting that in 10 minutes this post will be closed to comments." Just keepin' it real.

Chris Messina is packing up and shipping out of Flock. The designer will leave the social-browser startup as soon as he's done making flight metaphors. From Chris's "I'm heading out" entry:

I ve been in constant motion, bouncing along in the cockpit, weathering turbulent times

And:

The past nine months have been getting us down the runway, and now that we ve taken to flight

And he's:

ready...to surface the next horizon

Bon voyage, dude.

Mega-tech-blogger Doc Searls (a man who wants to stay atop a Technorati list, please Technorati, please) is chilling at home in Santa Barbara. As Paul Boutin (left) says, "Look, he's not working —- right now now now! Take the picture quick honey!"

Someone's been playing with Comic Life. A Flickr user named "Privateye" 'shopped up the shirtless shot of Naked Conversations authors Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. (That's JD Lasica's photo, first covered back here.)

After the jump, a comic made entirely of Riya Photo Search in-jokes.

Privateye's photos [Flickr]

For everyone who doesn't get it, Riya evangelist Tara Hunt is dating Flock evangelist Chris Messina. Apparently they're going all-raw-food. Riya's a pre-release person-recognition photo tool; Flock's a pre-release social browser. Marc Canter is the founder of Macromedia (and a strawberry).

Update: "Privateye" cracks a Larry Page hair joke.