OK, I wasn’t going to invite Rupert but now Nick’s outed him as a search wannabe so we’d better ask peter_d or somebody down that way to stroll next door and tell Murdoch he’s invited. (Email obviously won’t work because, judging from the acquisitions, the old boy doesn’t get on the internet very often).

Rup, trust me on this one, you really need to come sit with the boys and chat before you buy anything else. BTW, the beer’s on us.

The first trickle of official invites have gone out, more to follow in the next few days.

We’re considering this guy. Here’s his eMediaWire press release.

In the conference trade this is known as “building expectations”, laziness would be a more accurate description though.

Invites and confirmations of invites will be going out in….you guessed it the next few days.

I ran across this listing today in a local events calender. I love the pitch

Art for the Masses is a one day event for local artists to sell their work directly to the public. No gallery, no middleman, no wine, no cheese, just hardcore capitalism.

Very nice of the guys over there to add us to the header, in this market segment that is some prime real estate. Thanks to Nick_W and the Threadwatch crew.

The Brit one that is [may be confusing on the day, we will have at least two chris_r's].

Furious behind the scenes negotiations, a renumeration package approaching that of Shaun Wright-Phillips and a promise from The Gurtster not to nag for a whole week is all it took.

So to confirm Edinburgh September 10th, your chance to meet the man behind these [amongst many] masks www.searchguild.com, www.grayhatnews.com. Looks like he likes to talk too!

My first experience with EU low-fare airlines was going over to Stockholm from Stansted. As I recall, that flight didn’t assign any seats –not even by section– so it was first-come, first serve. It was booked 100%. Though the plane was actually nicely fitted out, who would know!?! Damn, there wasn’t one square inch that wasn’t covered by some backside. Seating was 6-across and this was definitely not a wide-body.

With all that humanity packed aboard, all you could see of the interior was a little glimpse here and there. I told Louise that I felt like I was in one of those buses in the Third World they’re always showing on the documentaries, and that any moment now one of the chickens would get out of the crates in the back and come walking up the aisle. Like “Debbie,” the name stuck –Chicken Airlines is our code for any low-cost carrier.

So Snap has $10M in funding, why is Debbie laughing?

Reading over JZ’s 2004 list of presentations at Web2.0 I keep hearing the squeek of a bubble. Clue me in, what web-altering ideas were presented there that are still hot items in 2005?

There was a time when Mackin, NFFC, Oilman, I and a few others were driven to convert …in the forum trade that meant getting people to leave other forums (by, ummm, various means), join ours, and actively participate.

Then Mackin decided he wanted to go to London for a beer and a non-conference devoted to networking was created pretty much on-the-fly. (Trust me, “on-the-fly” is far too formal a description for the process we used.)

Times have changed and we don’t feel the need to recruit, but if you’ve ever attended one of these events you’ll be hooked. Nothing beats the rush.