London Bloggers Meetup: eBay

Aw man, its been so long since I last blogged, just over a week. I'm sorry, I've been busy, I have a job, a knackering job. My week has been ten days long, and today's my own personal Saturday.

I was called up to go in and work the morning shift. I said no, although I sorely need the money, I'm just too tired. My hands are cut and bruised, they feel like paws. I need to catch up on the internet and write up stuff, like the London Bloggers Meetup I went to the other day, sponsored by eBay.

eBay are quite self-aware of the slightly grimy reputation they've developed lately, and are trying to shake it off. They've got this new 'Daily Deals' thing where a limited quantity of brand new goods are on sale with quite impressive discounts, different stuff at 8am every day. As cool-ass bloggers they're willing to give us a bit of foresight for upcoming deals, which could be useful.

Also, eBay provided the prizes for a raffle which saw Aref-Adib walk away with a Vodaphone mobile broadband dongle, and Hayley from Punlimited got a Del Netbook thing, which was sweet. There were free goodie bags for everyone with notepads, mugs and a 2gb memory stick and loads of free drinks and food. Generous folks thems eBays.

As is my way, here is a series of lists of people/blogs I spoke to, make nodding eye-contact with or understood were there despite no interaction with. Firstly the former

• Aref-Adib
• Andy Marketing Blagger
• The chap with a philosophy video blog
  
• Tom - Bored of London Bored of Life
• Tom Flashboy
• Meaghan - from the top floor flat
• Dr Zoe - the Shaman
• The Epicurenne
• Hayley the band Witness to the Beard and Punlmited
• Sheryl - Sartorial Pervert
• Cristiano Betta
• Rob - the Wine Conversation
• Malcolm Eggs - The London Review of Breakfasts

And now the list of people I made nodding eye contact with, briefly stood next to at the bar or otherwise acknowledged

• Timinator
• Miss Geeky
• Tiki Chris
• Peter Marshall
• Godwyns - the poet
• Rax
• Anthony Fresh Plastic - the mobile phone blogger
• Willem - Ice Cream for Everyone
  

And finally people who were there according to the internet, but I don't recall meeting, then again, I had a lot to drink and was very very tired.

• Ruthy
• Al Robertson
• Krista Booker
• Matt - the Seldom Seen Kid
• Shopzilla
• BitchBuzz
• Litman Live
• Vikki Chowney
• Selena Chan
• Robin Grant and Nathan McDonald - wearesocial
• Mauricio Samayoa
• Harriet Hines - Shine
• Darika Ahrens

The room was packed, there's a couple of people I've forgotten, gentle reminder comments would be appreciated.

Other write-ups of the event:-
here, here and here

This one time I went speed-dating, it was an interesting experience especially after the two cans of RedBull I'd had as an alternative to dinner. What concerned me most by the experience was meeting some chaps who routinely went speed dating and would meet the same girls time and time again. Rather than going to meet new people in the hope of hitting it off and finding love, they just enjoyed having 3 minute long chat to the same people month after month.

I fear that the same sort of thing is happening to me at the London Blogger Meetups, I'm just chatting to the same people, rather than networking and meeting new folk.

I've got to go to the other end of the room.

On the other hand, maybe these meetups are helping me come out of shell a wee bit, lets look at a graph:-

This shows how many people I talk to and how many people I just nod at cos they're too far away or I'm scared of them or whatever. We can clearly see that both levels are rising, the latter rising a wee bit more than the former, is this because I now know more people, or because I'm scared of more people?

If we add trend lines, these rises are easier to see, and furthermore, if we extrapolate the trandlines out we can see when the two KPIs converge:-

There we have it, some time in July 2011 I'll be talking to fifteen people, and nodding at exactly the same number of people without having a sustained conversation with them. It'll be like a singularity or something.

Speaking of singularities, I'd quite like to ask Tom Flashboy his opinion of Songkick.

Furthermore, as previously mentioned, today's my day off work, I need to write up other blogposts that I started on my 'ackberry, but need to finish, these blogposts include:-

• Knitting update
• In praise of GAME
• What makes a good venue
• Project Google Maps Racing
• Ranking London Bloggers by technorati authority (again)
  
• Job vacancies update

Look out for them soon.