Liveblogging WeMedia Miami 2008, Take One

An hour or so, all 10 of us GVers piled into our two rented Chrysler Sebrings and made our way to the Storer Auditorium at the University of Miami for Day 1 of WeMedia Miami 2008.  Coffee-and-bageled (thanks to GAP, who took an early morning trip to Coral Bagels of Coral Gables)

When the power went out yesterday in Miami and much of South Florida, those of us at the GV house were without internet – our router is through Comcast, which runs through the cable lines, which were also, apparently, down.  Those of us in the house  (initially thinking we’d shorted a circuit by using the washing machine and a billion or so laptops all at once) heard the news of the blackout from a neighbor; one of us who had gone out to get coffee; the traffic on the streets.

Doubtless the majority of the country heard about the blackouts from the internet.  Localized TV news being what it is, it’s unlikely that my mother in New Hampshire heard of it on television; more likely, she was checking Google News or whatever engine she prefers (but being related to me, I sincerely hope it was Google).

If she were perhaps 25 years younger (no offense Mom!), she may have been checking Facebook or Twitter and read a feed by someone closer to Florida and discovered the blackout that way.  Or perhaps she would have checked her iPhone okay, wait a minute – even if my mom were 25 years younger, she would find an iPhone frivolous and perhaps rightly so…

My point is, as has been said this morning in the introductory session, how we get our news is changing.  Like it or not (and I will have to write more on this later, because I sometimes fall into the latter category), it’s how it is.

For more LiveBlogging of WeMedia Miami 2008, checkk out the ifocos site.  TBC shortly.