Early Web 2.0 social ties formed through blogs and meetups before mass social media

Evidence

The year 2005 was also the first for two largely ad-hoc gatherings, SuperHappyDevHouse and BarCamp, which attracted social media enthusiasts primarily working at venture-backed startups. … Beale was using WordPress software and learned from Mullenweg’s Flickr stream that Mullenweg had just relocated to the Bay Area and was hosting a meetup. Beale was eager to meet the man behind the software: “This is so hard to conceive of now but I’m like, ‘Wow! I could actually meet the guy who made the script that I use for my blog.’” — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 156

Categorization

• CANDY: The anecdote about wanting to ‘meet the guy who made the script that I use for my blog’ captures how small the blogging world felt in 2005 — a fun, tweetable contrast to today.
• XREF: connects to: Early web community pioneers worked deliberately to shape technology toward human connection — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 132; Early Web 2.0 celebrity was built by leveraging blogs and lifestyle content — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 385; BarCamp functioned as the networking hub of early Web 2.0 celebrity — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 162

Broader Connections

• Early Web 2.0 celebrity was built by leveraging blogs and lifestyle content #corroborates (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 385