Gawker: valleywag, foo camp

They put #$*&@! Sanger back in my bio, again!?

Jackson West — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:00:00 EDT

A session at Foo Camp last weekend put on by Christy Canida and Jane McGonigal was meant to teach "things like empathy, how to play a role in a larger group, confidence in social settings, and supporting them in creating meaningful relationships online and in the real world." Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales seems to have spent it text messaging — click for the full photo. Have a better caption? The best one will become the new headline. Friday's winner: "The number of good ideas I've had" by [Fake] Michael Arrington. (Photo by Jane McGonigal)

Jimmy Wales, cult leader

Owen Thomas — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:40:00 EDT

Later this week, Wikipedia is holding its annual, aptly named Wikimania conference in Alexandria, Egypt. Want a preview? Check out this video of Jimmy Wales, cofounder of the world's largest volunteer-run, sneeringly incompetent bureaucracy, playing games with attendees of Foo Camp, a nerdfest held over the weekend in a semirural spot north of San Francisco. Not everyone thinks Wikimania is the same kind of innocent fun: There's talk of a boycott over Egypt's horrid human-rights policies and Internet censorship.

With 600 conferencegoers, attendance is down, but not dramatically. It's not a boycott; it's a borecott. But 600 followers devoted enough to trek to Alexandria are more than enough to puff up Wales's ego. They think they're attending a conference; like the postadolescents ringing Wales at Foo Camp, they're really just playing his game.

Plaxo's Share Bear speed-talks his way through friends-list chat

Owen Thomas — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:00:26 EST

Joseph Smarr is Plaxo's chief platform architect and one of the data-portability Share Bears. He just wants you to be able to snuggle your friends from one website to the next. How sweet! Smarr gave a speech on the subject at this weekend's Foo Camp nerdfest. I'd do a 100-word version of it, but I just can't keep up with the geek rock star's mile-a-minute pace.

Transport modes of the rich and famous

wagger1 — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 15:03:22 EDT

Ordinary hackers have to drive two hours to get to the rural Northern California town of Sebastopol to attend Foo Camp, the Tim O'Reilly-sponsored geekfest. Google cofounder Larry Page? He shows up in a helicopter, landing on a reserved patch of grass. Just another perk of being one of the richest nerds on the planet. (Photo by Marc Davis)

Loose Wires: Oh foo

Nick Douglas — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 23:50:38 EDT

A compelling play-by-play of the goings-on at FOO Camp '06. We don't know about you, but starting the day watching Kevin Rose popping a zit at an Addictive Users seminar and ending with Moshe Cohen entertaining the masses with his zany clownish antics is well worth the privilege of being a Friend of O'Reilly. [Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog]
Pictured: Esther Dyson, who hangs with more bigwigs than the Pope, talks to the men who own about 2.7% of all Lithuanian lifetimes. [Flickr]
A once-rumored Oracle deal did not happen. Columnist John C. Dvorak now predicts a Sun-Apple deal. Ergo, Dvorak is a nutjob. [Wired]
Limelight Networks is on the prowl for a new CEO. Apparently, they too missed the FOO Camp '06 invite, perhaps shunned because of that big ol' ugly lawsuit. [GigaOM]
Don't fuck cell phone providers. Or carry on illicit affairs that are heavily documented by email exchanges. It's tacky, not to mention it'll cost you. [CNN.com]

Co-written with Beth Gottfried

Poll: Did you want to be at Foo Camp?

Nick Douglas — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:00:00 EDT

This past weekend, whether you know it or not, dozens of Silicon Valley socialites camped out with tech publisher Tim O'Reilly in Sebastopol for this year's Foo Camp, cookin' up ideas and impressing eager reporters, same as every year.

But this year, the invite-only guest list seemed to stretch just far enough that half of the Valley's hip young techies found themselves asking, "If my friend got invited, why didn't I?"

Which brings us to the inevitable question:

Photo by Niall Kennedy [NiallKennedy.com]

To-Do this weekend: Get FUBAR at FooBar

Nick Douglas — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 22:40:38 EDT

Unless you're a Friend of Tim O'Reilly, you're not invited to his Foo Camp. So you can't go; I just wanted to remind you of that. [Upcoming]
Stanford hosts the latest BarCamp (think "McConference" — think it, don't say it out loud) one year after its first iteration. It's the official meetup for people who aren't mad they didn't get invited to Foo Camp. [Upcoming]
Or go to any of the many BarCamps around the world. It's the official meetup for people who aren't mad they can't get to BarCamp San Francisco. [Upcoming]
As if you didn't get drunk before these camps, you can get drunk after. Trust us, dealing with these people is nearly tolerable that way. (We kid. You need to get high too.) [Barcamp.org]
Saturday, suit up for the Women 2.0 BBQ and pool party, co-hosted with the bad boys of IM startup Meetro. [Entrepreneur27]
Burn on, burn in, burn out at the most anticipated desert campathon of tech: it's the Burning Man Festival, it's all next week, and tickets are for sale at the gate. Clothing optional, hallucinogenics mandatory. [Upcoming]