Of carnivals and summits

Currently, at The Krehbiel Strikes Back, there’s a discussion about the way the Virginia Blog Carnival has been handled in recent weeks. Click here to read “What Happened To The Virginia Blog Carnival?” and the comments under it.

Although the Virginia Blog Carnival has been around for a couple of years, anybody can start/present their own blog carnival. All it takes is the desire to do it, and the doing of it. Of course, most of its potential readers will simply ignore it if the posts selected don’t interest them. So, the only way for such an endeavor to make much sense is for the collection of posts to be attention-getting and worthwhile.

Last summer, with much assistance from Vivian J. Paige, SLANTblog floated the notion out that bloggers who wanted to participate in an experiment could join together for one weekend. The point of the project was to be original. Those bloggers who wanted to participate in the Weekend Without Echoes, were asked to post original material. That, rather than simply more cut and paste, or copycat blurbs, etc.

The project went well. I can’t say it changed anything. I know it didn’t hurt. But for one weekend there were lots of posts that were a little different from the norm.

Click here to see what I considered to be the best of the bunch -- there‘s some good writing and the topics are quite varied -- which amounted to my own WWE carnival.

And, any city can have it own bloggers summit. Talk about one to be staged soon in Richmond is underway. Stay tuned to SLANTblog for breaking news on this topic.

Updates:

• Snoopy at RiverCityRapids weighs in on the local blog summit topic:
  

“...Until we do, I think a blogger summit is a great idea if for no other reason than to get to know each other outside of the keyboard. I would certainly invite the big guys on the block to attend, I just won't hold my breath waiting for them to ask us along for the ride.”

• John Sarvay, of Buttermilk and Molasses, provides more to think about on this topic:
  

“...Having a weblog Sadie Hawkins dance is a fine idea. I'd be really interested in seeing a genuine conversation form between the various media communities in the area, though.”

• Tripp Fenderson posts more with "Blog Summit Update."

• Jason Kenney at j's notes is following the story