Eye on Winer

You can now watch Jason Calacanis’ onstage incident with Dave Winer at Gnomedex. On the Flash video, skip to the 450,000-byte mark to see Calacanis squirm after Winer throws a hissyfit from the crowd. Their exchange:

Winer: This is conference spam! You’re spamming us right now.

Calacanis: How am I spamming you Dave?

Winer: This is spam. Look at the screen. Look what’s on the screen, Jason.

Calacanis: I’m talking about the issue …

Crosstalk, laughter

Chris Pirillo: Let him finish!

Unknown: He’s the speaker. You’re not.

Calacanis, who recently compared his life as an entrepreneur to being a samurai killing people in each village he visits, gets a deer in the headlights look as his friend Winer sparks a round of heckling from the Gnomedex audience.

Seeing the video took Winer right back to his hurty place, as you can tell by reading a Twitter chat he had last night with Robert Scoble and Intel blogger Josh Bancroft (some of which Winer subsequently deleted):

Josh Bancroft: Morbidly curious? Want to watch the whole Calacanis/Winer blowup about conference spam at Gnomedex 2007? http://tinyurl.com/22ttxw

Dave Winer: @jabancroft, what did you think of it? could it have been resolved without a flamefest? how can we do this better in the future?

Dave: why not be part of the solution, upgrade the discourse, don’t sensationalize. that’s what they do on CNN. let’s do better. what do you say?

Josh: @davewiner I tend to agree that it was conference spam, and that the “flamefest” came from clashing strong personalities.

Dave: Really, it came from clashing personalities — maybe you should check that out and see if your impression is accurate. I don’t think it is.

Josh: @davewiner I’m pointing people to the (presumably unedited) video, so they can decide for themselves. No sensationalism intended.

Dave: I sat out the first two days. How do I know? I drove from Seattle to Berkeley. So the flaming, such as it was, was one-way.

Josh: @davewiner this is the first time I’ve seen the video of the session available.

Dave: People-bashing is just plain wrong. These conferences should be about ideas. When the people become the target, it goes off the rails.

Josh: @davewiner You’re reading a lot into my motives, Dave. Dangerous. I’m not trying make the flames come back.

Dave: That might be the core principal of the civility crusade O’Reilly was on. Making people the issue is wrong. Stick to ideas.

Josh: @davewiner If anything, I’m hoping to help it all come to an end, now that anyone can watch the video and decide for themselves what happnd.

Dave: I feel I’ve given enough. How do I resign from that position?

Josh: I apologize if my wording was inflammatory. Wasn’t meant to be. I’m sorry I even mentioned it/picked at the scab.

Dave: I don’t think people get how utterly EXHAUSTING it is to be objectified and villified as a form of entertainment.

Josh: I think you underestimate how many people are on your side. I respect and look up to you. I’m sorry you’ve gone through all this.

Dave: @jabancroft, then why didn’t you say that? Look at what you actually said. I want to opt out of being bashed in the future.

Robert Scoble: @DaveWiner: I totally agree with you about how it feels to be objectified and vilified. It’s the downside of putting myself out there.

Scoble: People forget there are people on the other end of their blog posts. Or, worse, they attack for business reasons.

Scoble: But, on the other hand, I get so much goodness in return that focusing on the assholes is just unfair to the good people.

Scoble: I’m reading feeds right now and can’t keep up with the good people. The smart people. I love blogging for that. Hell with the haters.

Josh: @Scobleizer @davewiner I just love you guys so darn much, I want to give you all a big Internet Hug.

Dave: Actually, I’d like to scratch that last comment. It’s been a relatively bad last hour. I wish I could relive it. Time for a walk.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 12:48 pm and is filed under Conferences, Dave, Friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.