Netroots Coalition meets in Hollywood

We're getting underway here at the Westin Diplomat in Hollywood. We've got representatives from all over Florida, including Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Daytona Beach, Tampa, Martin County, Miami-Dade, and of course Palm Beach County. Probably about 25 of us here right now.

Kenneth Quinnell, Coalition chair, is making introductory remarks. There's going to be a raffle of Crashing the Gate, the Kos et al. book ... I suppose I should have read it already. I suck. But Kenny just offered free drink tickets for the "J-J Soiree" over at the Crowne Plaza tonight ... maybe I won't suck so bad if I stick around for that. Although I can't stay long ...

According to Kenny: Florida has one of the nation's largest progressive blogospheres, with over 100 active progressive blogs. (Wow.) The trend is moving towards Googling elections, and so blogs will come up even more on those searches. The key things to increase the profile of blogs are frequent updates and cross-linking. (Incidentally, there basically is no Republican blogosphere in Florida.)

Other opportunities for communicating and connecting with each other include Facebook, which is a great means for organizing and linking with each other, as well as Internet radio, like the Florida Progressive Radio network. The blogs and Internet radio in some cases are doing better jobs of covering elections than are the mainstream media. And it's helped that things are becoming more user-friendly ... you don't have to be so technologically advanced anymore. Now the latest thing is Twitter, a type of "micro-blogging."

But the next critical thing to do is to diversify. Most bloggers are white males; most blog readers are white males. We have to invite people with other experiences and other viewpoints into the fold. We can have the "producers" take this step, but we need to build our audience with far more diversity. The representative from Miami for Obama has invited us to be involved ... they are a predominately African-American group. Both BarackObama.com and Democrats.com are far more diverse than the main Florida and national (non-candidate) blogs.

Of course, blogs are beginning to make more noise ... like when Florida lieutenant governor Jeff Kottkamp edited the Florida Progressive Coalition wiki entry about himself to delete unflattering information about him.

Next, Ray Seaman of Progress Florida is describing the genesis of Progress Florida and the evolution of the netroots to today's situation. Progress Florida is descended from some of the earliest netroots groups, beginning with the one in Colorado where it all started. Progress Florida is designed to be a clearinghouse for organizing, blogging, event planning, and more.

Ken finishes up by pointing out how critical the technology is to building relationships. Even if one can't travel extensively, the friendships and relationships are growing through the Internet.

Sessions will continue at noon local time ...