Current TV meetup

I just got back from the first Current.tv meetup in San Francisco. About 45 or so folks turned out at a Haight Street cafe; it was so crowded, we walked down the street and took over the Red Victorian B&B. Finally got a chance to meet Robin Sloan, late of the Poynter and now a staffer at Al Gore's Current.tv (the former INdTV).

I found the same level of excitement and energy here as I found last year in the Dean meetups, only now it's focused into grassroots media creation rather than the political process.

I made sure everyone knew about Ourmedia.org -- a surprisingly large number of folks had heard of us -- and argued that the meetups should be about personal media creation and not about producing videos for Current.tv exclusively, and there seemed to be general agreement that while Current is the focus of these meetups, we shouldn't overlook the other synergies found among the extraordinary wealth of grassroots media organizations in the Bay Area.

Speaking of which:

The Rise Up! Network, a media collective that Josh helped create over the past few months, is having its next meeting this Sunday at 6 pm at the Speakeasy Cinema in SF.