As I've hinted previously, I'll be there. Not sure how interesting it'll be, really, to people who read blogs. For an event like this, the role of the mainstream press is mostly to serve as a filter for people who don't really watch it themselves or who want someone to tell them what they're supposed to think about the whole thing. While bloggers can potentially provide an alternative filter, in this case I'm not sure what additional value it provides. I mean, if you'd prefer hear me announce the basketball game instead of Bob Costas, then you might enjoy it, but I'm not sure what other kind of value added there is.
So, anyway, hopefully it'll be fun for me but I don't know quite how to make it fun for you. I have some ideas, but I won't really know how well they'll play out until I get there.
...I suppose this is one of those "dimishing expectations" posts. I hope I can provide some exciting inside scoop coverage of the convention. I'm glad bloggers are invited, but given the fact that there will be 15,000 media people there, I find the presence of 35 odd bloggers to be not all that much of a story, at least before the event. I tend to ignore a lot of press inquiries -- partially because I'm lazy, partially because I get tired of spending a lot of time answering questions only to find one silly quote popping up in a story, and partially because I don't really feel like "bloggers going to convention" is a particularly interesting story. If bloggers make news while there, it'll be interesting. If not, it won't. Don't get me wrong -- I think Blogging the Phenomenon, and the general netroots movement, is nothing to be sneezed at, but Bloggers at Convention just shouldn't be garnering the attention that it is.
Though, my one thought is that all of the self-righteous articles about bloggers vs. real journalists are motivated by one thing -- we'll be in the media box, too... And, to paraphrase some idiot... We Can Hear You...
