Our wedding gets mentioned in an article in today's Wall Street Journal Online titled The Minutes of Our Lives, which looks at the growing phenomenon of liveblogging -- that is, blogging about an event while at that event. It's no longer unusual to see people liveblogging at tech conferences or events on live television, but some people are liveblogging things like their Thanksgiving dinner or the birth of their child. Twitter.com, where you can post ultra-short entries typically no longer than a sentence, even had a post made from a mobile phone at a funeral.
Jennifer Saranow, WSJ staff reporter and author of the article, has been in touch with me and the Ginger Ninja for the past couple of weeks. She contacted us after finding this article on our wedding blog by Wendy:
If you would like to blog our wedding, you may do so! But after the fact. We really want all the fun things to be a surprise. And we really, really don't want you to bring your laptops to the wedding (JKB). We want you to pay undivided attention (Ethan, hee) to the ceremony and then have face-to-face exciting interactions - like dancing! (Erica, I know you don't need to be asked twice) - during the reception. But after you leave, we'd be more than happy to have you blog about it. There are a lot of bloggers and readers whom we weren't able to invite, and the more of a taste we as a group can offer them...well, it'd make me happy. We hope to post some photos soon after ourselves.
Here's the snippet from the Wall Street Journal article that mentions us:
Hosts who want to ensure that guests focus on the festivities are responding with countermeasures. Expecting about half a dozen bloggers at their wedding, Joey de Villa, 39, and Wendy Koslow, 32, posted "A Note To Other Bloggers" on their wedding Web site about two weeks before their September 2005 nuptials in Cambridge, Mass. The note asked guests not to bring their laptops to the event and to only blog about the wedding after the fact. "I wanted them to pay attention and enjoy themselves and participate," says Ms. Koslow, who came up with the idea for the embargo. "I wanted them to be in the moment."
Although the guests complied, the first attendee blog post was up by 11:16 that night, shortly after the reception ended. The culprit: Rev. A. K. M. Adam, a 49-year-old Episcopal priest from Evanston, Ill., who preached at the ceremony. From his hotel room, he wrote, "the ketubah is signed, the glass smashed, the champagne toasted, the disco medley played, and the guests exhausted. These guests, anyway." Rev. Adam says, "It was the thing that happened that day, so I wrote about it."
My thanks to Jennifer Saranow for including me and Wendy in the article!
As for the etiquette of Liveblogging, what do you think? Post your thoughts in the comments.
Office phone:
Google Talk:
If you're at a press conference, seminar or committee meeting I don't see the big deal about firing off a series of short messages from your BlackBerry. It would blend into the ambient level of activity pretty seamlessly.
Whipping out the laptop is another matter though -- depends on whether laptops are an expected feature of said event. If yes, go for it. If not, use discretion and blog from a smaller platform (Treo, BlackBerry, etc). If it's going to be really disruptive even from a small platform (like say sending movie reviews mid-flick from a darkened theatre in Cannes) you should save it until you leave.
Sure, you may say why not just write it on a piece of paper or in a paper notebook. Well, in my experience, once something gets written down on paper, and you want to transcribe that online, it NEVER happens or rarely happens. Because it takes a conscious effort to do so. With so many things that we have to do during the day, transcribing notes is considered low on the priority list.
That's why if I have something to say, then liveblogging is the way to do it. I've even now begun to do audio recordings and podcasting which is even better, because I don't have to think and type, I just say it as it is.
Now, for personal things like weddings, I can definitely see why you wouldn't want to liveblog or for that matter bring a laptop and do work while at the wedding. Because that would be rude to the groom and bride and to all at the wedding. In the wedding, you should be focussed on the wedding itself and enjoy the moment otherwise it will be missed. If you're going to do something else besides focussing on the wedding, you might as well not be at the wedding at all.
And Joey, wow, to hear your wedding got coverage on the Wall Street Journal, that's awesome!
As for less techie events, I'd go with the wishes of the host as well as trying to fit into generally acceptable behaviour for the venue. And my laptop bag doesn't go with anything that I'd wear to a wedding.