I arrived late to yesterday's Open Source Media launch, so I missed Jeff Goldstein's keynote address (although Roger L. Simon filled me in).

But I had a wonderful time yesterday. I have no idea what to expect from Open Source Media (I'm not an insider, of course), but it's amazing and inspiring to see so much major talent involved, enthused, and in one place.

I arrived in time for Judith Miller's address. One thing is clear: the MSM is sitting up and paying attention to the blogosphere. Judith Miller proposed rules. I'm too lazy to reconstruct them from a few notes I scribbled down while eating, but here they are, (summarized by a skeptical Jeff Jarvis):

1. Be honest about how you are and what your agenda is and who?s funding you. She says we ?don?t have to look far? to find examples of bloggers who are now. Who, Judy? I hope someone presses that. If you?re going to throw out that accusation, back it up with facts. Good reporting, you know.
2. Try to reach the subjects of stories for comment before publishing. ?This is journalism 101.? But here?s web 102, Judy: those sources as often as not can and do respond on their own sites.
3. If a subject denies what you say and has evidence, ?say so; it might actually be true.?
4. If you make a mistake admit it. Ohhhh, boy, isn?t that the juicy one. How come it took you so long to admit your mistakes? And have you yet fully? She said the Times does this through editors? notes and she doesn?t entirely approve of them.
5. If you are wrong, keep going until you get it right.

I see that OSM is receiving the inevitable criticism, which I think is quite unfair, as it just started. Things like this have to start somewhere, and I'm glad that Roger and Charles and the many people who are involved with this have shown some initiative. (I think critics who don't like it ought to put their money where their mouth is and show some initiative themselves.)

Anyway, this is only the second blog event I've attended (the first one was Blog Nashville), and I was just thrilled to meet so many bloggers I've known for years without ever meeting them. Here's as best a list that my foggy, groggy, not-enough coffee memory, can recall -- pretty much in the order that I met (or re-met) these fine bloggers:

My memory is probably lagging behind my fingers, but I wanted to get this post up when what remains of my memory is still "fresh" if that's not too much of a contradiction. It amazes me to meet people in person that I already "know" from their writing, as it's the inverse of what we normally do, which is to meet people before we know them.

Anyway, Bravo, OSM! This was a wonderful event, and I'd like to offer my thanks to the organizers, and my sincerest hope for future success.

(I may upload some pictures that I took yesterday, but I haven't looked at them yet.)

UPDATE: The pictures didn't come out too well because of the lighting. I have a very small camera and the flash just doesn't perform well at indoor, nighttime functions, which this was. But I hope these will give a flavor of the fun that was had. Only one was posed; usually I try for spontaneity through stealth.

This last one was posed:

(Vik Rubenfeld, La Shawn Barber, Evan Coyne Maloney.)

UPDATE (11/20/05): Neo-neocon summed up the spirit of the festivities better than I could:

When I say bloggers can talk, I mean talk. We're talking serious talk here. Stamina, breadth, depth, decibel level. Get a group together, and it's not for the faint of heart--if you don't jump in quickly and vigorously, you may never get the floor, because the competition is hot and the topics change at the speed of light as one thought follows another, like group chain-smoking.