Hollywood High

Roosevelt Hotel, Hollywood I ran into Ron and Marta Bloom at the opening reception at On Hollywood. Ron's the CEO of Podshow, the company that I produce Gillmor Gang and Gillmor Daily with, as well as some business development. My badge read Steve Gillmor's InfoRouter with the designation of Blogger. Ron told me to change it to Podshow. I did that. Note: Podshow is covering my hotel here, ZDNet my airfare, and Tony Perkins my press pass. Thanks to all.

The cocktail party was ValleyLite: John Furrier trying to figure out how to spend his 5 million, Eric Rice showing a video of him getting out of a ticket (80 in a 60 zone), and Tony Perkins' wife with a baby wrapped to her chest. Dan Farber has the pix.

Tony Perkins took the stage to set the scene. I have been wondering why I felt drawn to this particular conference in this particular city. I lived here on and off for 6 of 10 years in the '70s and early '80s, and for the life of me never thought much about coming back. But Tony has a odd sense of timing that seems to presage important shifts in the tech ecosystem. As an example, Tony is showing a slide that shows an upward curve (A great time to be an Entrepreneur) that he cheerfully admits has absolutely no data to back it up.

Web 2.0's Toastmaster General Peter Hirschberg does his usual excellent job of making us feel like we're trapped in a Reefer Madness episode. Now a snip from his classic What am the Internets bit, and then RatherGate. OK we're clear of the izblogingjournalism black hole. But wait, we're in the Battle of the Brands segment. Toilet walls strike back. Fine. The bloggers have power. I'm looking around to see if Mike Ovitz is running scared yet.

Now we have the fundamental propaganda: The Link. The Tag. The Erotitaxonomy. No mention of the Death of Search or Links, or Attention. Peter is oh so retro, but I guess it's all for the Cartel's remedial benefit. Don't worry, here's your Long Tail right here pal. Nice technorati commercial about relevance -- "a lot more like the world of magazines instead of posts just coming at you." Shades of Sphere... Is it live yet? Did it go beta? Mike Arrington, sitting in front of me,  skypes: Kill... me...

I don't mean to be hard on Peter. He's just an easy target. The audience is loving it; Disco Jesus is tearing up the room. I will survive... Bus. It's YouTube Live.