Ted Murphy of PayPerPost tries Social Networking in Central Florida

Ted Murphy, the founder of controversial Orlando-based PayPerPost, is at it once again.

He has recently founded a social network for Central Florida web workers called Doterati. There’s much wrong with this, but perhaps a few things right with it. I’m all about giving someone a second chance - even when Death Star attack sirens are going off in my head.

When I say he “founded” a social network, I mean to say that he spent an afternoon or two using Ning’s excellent network-creating web application to slap up a few pages to get it going. He did buy the domain name however (in his own name), and he has relegated himself to a “user” as far as any casual visitor to the site would know.

So, how did I find out about it? Murphy and his pals created a Twitter user (also called Doterati) and began doing some searches for Central Florida bloggers and web geeks and then following them. This is becoming a pattern for companies wanting exposure from bloggers. Search through Twitter for keywords germane to your region or product, follow the Twitter user, wait a few days and watch the traffic boost. Nothing wrong with it. Sort of clever, but sort of snarky, too. No real invitation, no risk of email spam, a very soft-sell approach in such that many people think they have “discovered” something in some sort of hip, viral way - when in fact it is deliberate marketing effort by those who use this practice.

But, I’ve already excoriated PayPerPost before here, so I’ll try and be nice this time. PayPerPost is a business model which pays bloggers to blog about products and services from other companies. They litter college campuses (literally - with flyers everywhere) like UCF exhorting college students to “Make Money Blogging” to the tune of $50 to $100 per day.

Companies pay bloggers $3 to $10 (on average) for a post of so many words with specific links to their websites or products. Hordes of young people signed up. For a while, many of them made some decent cash. Then Google got serious with the unsponsored text links and the bloggers in the PayPerPost network were hit hard.

The biggest complaint people have with PayPerPost is that they promoted dishonest blogging. The posts were often worded to make it sound like the writer was a fan or user of the product. The blogosphere reacted violently. Eventually, PayPerPost conceded to requiring a disclaimer on all paid posts. The fans of PayPerPost who call themselves “Posties” are a particular rabid bunch that make some gaming clans look tame by comparison.

What made matters worse was Ted Murphy himself. He shot back at critics, most notably TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, with the political skills of Walter Mondale. In certain delusion, he had the escapades and hijinks of his company filmed and put online at RockStartUp. I can’t say they aren’t worth watching. They are certainly educational, if nothing else. What’s surprising to me is that many of the episodes that outed Murphy is an ego-maniacal spendthrift are still up on the site, despite wide-spread criticism.

More recently, IZEA, a company that, well, pretty much does the same thing as PayPerPost. Except in some kind of social way which no one can figure out. They also recently shut down one of their operations due to, in Murphy’s words, “elevated levels of abuse”. I hesitate to point out that a tech person’s job is to control, manage, and defeat abuse and this type of statement makes me question even more Murphy’s credentials in the tech community. Oh, I guess I didn’t hesitate at all, did I?

What about Doterati?

One could make the strong argument that Ted Murphy should be focusing on returning a profit to all the investors who have put some serious cash into his various enterprises, none of which have a positive cash flow and free from venture capitalist entanglements yet.

There is a growing and real distrust of anything this man does - and not without reason. So, while on the one hand maybe Doterati is a humbling attempt to integrate himself better with the Central Florida community (always a good idea for outsiders), there’s the suspicion that Doterati is just a way to gain a giant mailing list for Murphy’s marketing efforts. I’m not sure he’s the best person to run things, but on the other hand, I’m willing to let him hang himself. Should he flub this up, maybe we’ll finally have enough irked individuals necessary to run him out of town permanently. Conversely, this could be his saving grace, giving him the platform to demonstrate that he does understand community, that not everybody chases the almighty dollar to its logical end, and that while we can agree to disagree on various aspects of blogging, that he realizes that his marketing ideas aren’t for everyone.

I noticed he is letting others form groups in Doterati and push their events so that’s a positive. However, one Central Florida blogger, Alex Rudloff, already got a firestorm of criticism last month for suggesting that folks sign up for it. So, uh, I’m not suggesting it.

But, I do want to hear from the Brevard and Central Florida bloggers, web developers, web designers, computer and network gurus. Is this something that you think will work? Is Ted’s new network a satisfactory solution to us communicating and getting together better? Can we trust Ted to just let this grow on its own and to just be what it is? Or are we going to find ourselves the victims of endless email member spam about IZEA projects, splog comments at Doterati from Murphy and his minions, or show up to conferences and shindigs in Orlando, only to be greeted at the door by the Postie Shock Troops? Or will we put our time into this and then have him not renew the domain name?

You can comment here or on my profile at Doterati, as long as I’m there anyway. The jury is out, but I’m hopeful. But I did use a brand-new password to sign up. Just in case.


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I’m “hopeful” along with you. As one of Central Florida’s only early-stage technology VCs, I see a lot of potential benefit for everyone involed with Doterati and other efforts to network the region. For example, I’m a member of the Gainesville Underground, a niche group of web techies that should benefit from plugging into Doterati as well.

I know Ted, have backed Ted, and commend he and others for working together to kick this off. As I see it, it’s just the next step in an evolution of our CFl community that started a long time ago with a variety of smaller, more focused communities. Like all communities, we will have our different opinions about how to build long-term value in our companies and region.

In addition to being “hopeful”, I’m confident such differences will be a strength rather than a weakness of this collective effort.

Lawrence,
This post contains a number of factual errors regarding both me and my company, but I feel it is more important to focus on Doterati.

While I have been part of some of the initial meetings and given a hand, Doterati is far from a “Ted Murphy” initiative. The group is lead by multiple local professionals who share a joint vision - to make central florida a mecca for interactive technology and marketing.

My personal contribution revolved around setting up the site, creating the corporate ID and personally funding near term expenses (such as the domains and Ning upgrades) until the organization is ready to approach corporate sponsors. That is why my name is attached to the site, it is a feature of Ning which unfortunately cannot be changed within their application.

Whatever personal opinions you may have about me (even though you don’t even know me), I would suggest you give the Doterati team the benefit of your support. People like Tara Lamberson, Dan Kinchen and Mark Krupinkinski are working hard to make this happen and I believe in the vision.

On a personal note I would be happy to sit down and have a coffee with you if you want to discuss any of the issues or concerns you raise in your post.

Doterati does seem to be a legit attempt at building something that is desperately needed in Orlando. It’s a 501c3 with an independent board that should, theoretically, operate and grow outside of the Izea/PPP’s influence.

That being said, I think at this point its important to get non Izea/PPP people involved so it can outgrow any concerns people have. Yes, most of us are against Izea’s product, but Ted himself has always come across pretty pleasant and I’m sure his overall intentions with doterati are positive.

Here’s the thing though, Ted. When those of us who travel, travel, and we go to conferences and we say that we’re from Orlando, at least once on our journey someone will start bitching to us about your company. One of the people in my little world once told me that they’d like to be proud of Orlando and not have to defend it. Having Izea tied to Orlando doesn’t help accomplish that, and having your name on the site makes people feel like this is more of an outreach initiative by Izea than anything sincere. The fear is that it will only further enforce whatever connections people are building between the Orlando scene and your company.

Again, I know some of the other folks behind doterati though, and I’ve met Ted in person on a few occasions. I stand by my recommendation to join up. Izea, love them or hate them, is a contributing member of our local community, and doterati is an attempt to build something that we really do need.

Hey Lawrence, I noticed you joined Doterati and I looked at your profile and saw this post in the RSS feed, so here I am to see what is going on.

I am sorry to say that you do in fact have some facts wrong. Yes, Ted Murphy’s name is at the bottom of the site as the creator and yes Ted Murphy bought the domain name. But, Doterati is an organization that is currently underdevelopment by the local tech and interactive marketing community. It is not a social networking site. We are just using Ning to facilitate its creation. There is a committee that is currently working on the site now. As a matter of fact at this morning at the Membership Committee, Mark Krupinski presented a proposed layout of the site.

The organization was not officially formed so Ted with his resources (money, talent, staff) started to get things going, while many other people from various companies started to put together the organization. Sure it is a mistake for any one company to put their name all over the place; this was just someone trying to get things moving. Things will be transferred to the parent organization soon. We just have to get talk to Ning, and get a developer to alter the database record for the creator. As far as the site goes, several people run it. I manage a handful of the groups, Mark Krupinski (from Rasmussen College) runs the site and I also have been the one to list many of the local events. Also Mark Krupinski is the one that runs the Twitter account.

There are many people involved in this thing, various companies big, small and individuals. This thing is so new, that all you have to do is get involved and be a part of it and help us to make sure everything is the way it should be.

I am really offended at your blog post, but I will get over it. There are so many of us trying to tell the tech community, “HEY, this is NOT a Ted Murphy, Izea, and Payperpost thing. It is ours!” I currently lead the membership community, our current members are;

Dan Kinchen – One Step Solutions
Robert Dempsey – Atlantic Dominion Communications
Mark Krupinski – Rasmussen College
Greg Rollett – Rollett Marketing

If you want to help us, please let some us know and join one of the many other committees such as, marketing, sponsorships, education, web Teams and or get on the board. There are still spots to fill. Those committee names are unofficial names, WHY, we are only a month old.

So please help us by leading the online tech and interactive community, instead of giving us bad press.

Doterati is still in its infancy. We are currently working very hard to get a website up and running. In the meantime, we created a ning and a twitter group to start building awareness for the organization and to build community. I’m in charge of education and networking for the organization. Our goal is to create events that target our active IT community and growing interactive marketing community. We encourage people to get involved in the organization- personally, I need all the help I can get on the networking side. Having been a part of the organization from the beginning or almost beginning, I can assure you that this is not a Ted Murphy organization, but Ted proactively volunteered his time to set up the ning and attend some of our meetings. Doterati is a Central Florida organization open to participation from everyone and not a one man show. Our Board is made up of people from all different types of organizations. We still have openings for committees if anyone is interested in joining.

I’d love to see people get more involved and check out Doterati for themselves versus jump to conclusions and discount the organization before they’ve had a chance to be a part of it.

Let me first say that I don’t know Ted personally, and while I feel that paid blogging goes against the very fabric of what blogging is all about, when I first heard about PayPerPost more than a year ago, I figured it was only a matter of time before someone did it, and Ted beat everyone to the punch.

As a highly active member of the local tech community here in Central Florida I have heard negative things about Ted, PayPerPost, Izea, Mindcomet, et al. I have also heard great things from people working at Izea that love their jobs. As a member of the Doterati Membership Committee I regularly bring up at meetings the need to ensure that anything Doterati does is in the spirit of the community, and does not give off the appearance that it is being run or controlled by any single entity, that there is a single agenda being pushed, or that this is merely a scheme to attract talent for a single company (which is a challenge for all of us anyhow). Rest assured, if that happens then I will immediately withdraw from the membership committee and blog about the entire thing.

Until that happens though, I am of the belief that the tech community here in Central Florida could use a hand from an organization such as Doterati. There are many smaller companies here (such as mine) that could use the additional local exposure. In addition, there are a great number of people here with great ideas that could use access to the larger companies as well as VC folks. Most have no idea how to go about it. That is where I feel Doterati can help. It also works in the other direction. Many companies are not on the cutting edge of technology as we are (Mark this morning said he has taught people how to blog and use a wiki) and are not aware of what is available, or where the talent is. Doterati can help there too.

As long as Doterati is focused on helping the community I am definitely in. As with anything, time will tell, but I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt.

Lawrence,

Great post regardless of the inaccuracies. Couple of things,

(1) I’ve been asked by Tara to be the Community Manager of doterati. When I came onboard last month, Ted and I suggested to create a Ning Group to discuss all the issues around our new organization in between board and committee meetings. I understand the power of Ning, but I sure as heck did not expect to have 204 Members within 30+ days - so this thing has snowballed & only proven that there is a hunger for organized community in Central Florida.

(2) As Community Manager, I’m also the guy who is now “following” you via the doterati twitter account. As an avid twitter-ite, I am constantly playing the technology and the various apps associated with it.

When I “took over” the account from Tara (we actually share it, but I do the most “tweets”), I decided to take a more “Scoble” style approach to this twitter account in that more important to follow than lead with this resource as you can effectively gauge a pulse on the community. Through summize and twitterlocal, I have been seeking marketers, developers and other technofiles to “follow”. What’s hilarious here is that people automatically follow “doterati” back about 40% of the time - and some actually join the Ning group that way. Is that how you joined?

Given the “snarky” comment, I feel the need to apologize, but I won’t.

I just want to make it crystal clear to everyone that I did this - not Ted Murphy. My actions are not “snarky”, if anything they are “attentive” of the community voice that is “alive” via twitter.

This is vital to me and doterati.

As for what we “tweet” I urge you to find one instance where I have announced anything of value to either MindComet or IZEA - if anything, I’ve been a champion of other Central Florida businesses (e.g. NFI Studios, Hivelogic, etc.) and individuals and blog posts I persoanlly thought held some meaning to the Central Florida community.

(3) Ted Murphy. Man, I’ve only met him a couple of times but boy does that name harness contoversy and I’m really kind of over it. I just wish people who come accross this idea - we are group in the making and therefore an i”idea” about to be implemented - would just do some proper research (e.g. read Tara’s posts, read the “tweets”, interact on the Ning, ask questions, volunteer, etc.) rather than jump to conclusions. It almost reminds me of the current state of politics where we are driven by knee-jerk responses and xenophobic “hear-say”.

Again, as I stated in Alex’s blog (see: http://www.alexrudloff.com/2008/05/16/new-orlando-association/), Ted is just one person - get over it pure and simple.

What’s so ironic about this whole thing is that I’ve been to about 7 doterati meetings so far and Ted was at two. As each day goes by, it seems he plays less and less a role. I don’t know if he is doing this on purpose to avoid the criticism or he is simply just trying to run his business. If it’s the former, that’s pretty pathetic. Everyone deserves a right to sit at our Community Table, until the Community Table decides that maybe they need to go somewhere else to eat.

I’ll leave it with this, as I wrote on Alex’s blog:

“For the readers who are not hesitant - but cynical about this new organization - I say that doterati isn’t the mob. If you join it and find that you don’t like it, walk away. In fact, walk away and start a new group and I’ll help you if you ask me. First and foremost, I want the Central Florida community to go beyond “surviving” - I want it to lead.

Time will tell.

Eventually, if Doterati becomes successful, I guarantee that any *issues* that the community has with *any* member of doterati will come out in the wash and will, one way or another, be addressed.

If these issues in the community are not addressed, the group will never become successful.

If doterati wants to be a leader, it must be legitimate and transparent.

So I say this: Think “Word Of Mouth Marketing 101″.

People talk.

You can either avoid the conversation or you can be apart of the conversation.

I say join the conversation and try to make a difference.

To do nothing is failure and we all lose.”

Regarless of what you think of my comment, I want to thank you for the post. I’m sure there will be more posts from others over the comming weeks. I just hope they are driven out of the need to discuss the important issues and not just to harness the controversy behind one person for blog rankings.

Feel free to contact me with “any” questions or comments. My cell is 407-618-5422 or you can reach me at [email protected].

Great post and thanks for the insight.

Best Regards,

Mark.

I have to agree with everyone else in saying that this is a community effort. It also just so happens that IZEA is part of our community. Can you, or anyone else attest to getting the kind of National recognition or funding that Ted has received in our community? I am impartial to the PPP/IZEA issues, but do believe that the Central Florida community focuses too much on ego and smack talk than community building.

I would love to see Orlando small business do great. I would even love to help out in any way that I can. Doterati is going to help this happen. 3 weeks ago when I joined the site, I had no idea that there were amazing companies doing even more amazing things in the tech/marketing scene.

As the marketing rep for Doterati, I can say that the only goal I have is to promote the people in the community through our site, that can make a difference in the world. Your post is not making a difference, instead you got some attention and blog comments by creating controversy without research.

We are all on Twitter, we all blog. Ask some questions. Mark, Tara, Robert, Renee and myself would love to fill you in on the happenings at Doterati and OUR community.

Okay, okay. I get it. Ted Murphy was just the one who initiated the whole thing and helped set it up. Kudos to him for stepping up to the plate.

If there’s a misunderstanding here, understand that it’s on the behalf of anyone who would not take into account the reputation Murphy has. Not saying he is pure evil (as some here seem to think), but he hasn’t exactly been the angel of internet love, either.

I would kind of think that if the Doterati leadership are going to defend every question about the origins and direction about the organization with the same vigor they’ve done here, that it might be best to put just a bit more of this on the website - and maybe change the Ning registration so that someone’s name other than Murphy’s appears on the footer. Wouldn’t hurt for him to xfer the domain to Doterati, Inc., once the 501(c)3 is up and running.

As it stands, the only text on the site currently says, “To advance the Central Florida interactive marketing, media and technology community by serving as an association for professional development, education, community networking and overall inspiration for our digital society”. Which doesn’t say too much. I’m sensitive to the leaders saying “Hey, we just started. We’re getting there.” But they are obviously hearing some of these questions from others. Seems to me like a few minutes of extra text somewhere on the website could go a long way to soothing that over a bit. Feel free to just grab your own comments here and repost them on an “About” page there… that should do for now.

I can’t address every minor concern (and overconcern) here, but to summarize my thought process of the original post (which I thought was clear but… maybe not), it’s this:

“I like the idea of Doterati. Central Florida needs this and it could be really great. But, oops, looks like Ted Murphy is a major player in this. That ain’t good, methinks. Maybe this is some Izea shenanigans. Let me do a WhoIs… Oooh, that looks sneaky.. it’s his little baby… man, that really sucks, because I’d really like this to work out.. Ah, what the hell… I’ll register and let’s just see what happens. Maybe Ted is really trying to move forward and get involved and that would be totally cool. I’m a little suspicious otherwise, but screw it… I’ll register and hope for the best. I see some other cool folks are on here (Josh Hallett) so here I go.”

And I don’t think I’m alone in that thought process based on comments and emails from this post. Individual responses forthcoming after a refill on my Iced Chai Tea.

@Dan of Florida Venture Blog: I like your take about the differences being strengths. Very solid. I would never imagine excluding Izea from any community effort, and if they take the initiative as they’ve done here, and it becomes successful, I’m all the more excited about that. It’s all about Orlando and Central Florida. We are the next Silicon Valley sans the silicon.

Now, if I could just get you to comment on my recent post about looking for an Angel Investor, that would be awesome .

@Ted Murphy: What to say to a guy who is running three, four (?) companies and has time to defend himself constantly even on a little ol’ blog like mine? Not sure. But here’s a weak attempt.

Thanks for not rehashing the PayPerPost controversy. I linked to off-site stories about that so readers can make up their own mind as to what’s factual or not. I have my view obviously, but most of the “history” was just for folks who read my blog who have no idea what PPP even is or why this would even be a point. And I’m not even saying it was a point.. just my “silly screed”.

I don’t think the point is whether or not I know you, although after 45 episodes of RockStartUp, some of you does come through. Personally, I like your personality. Business-wise we don’t see eye to eye on some things, but I’m hardly alone in that regard. I think you need to realize that you are going to get flack for anything you do on the net (or as I like to call it “smashing hammer blows”) and I’m not sure defending yourself is the ever-constant strategy.

If you’re initial involvement in Doterati is as you say, I’ll be the first to back you. Maybe that’s why you did it. Or maybe you just truly are community-oriented and we all just couldn’t “see it” through all the hullabaloo surrounding PPP. Very possible. VERY possible. Don’t be so defensive. Moving forward with stuff like this is your best opportunity to gain supporters and push the past where it belongs - in the past. I don’t think any of us can defend the past very well… not our internet past. I know I sure can’t and probably wouldn’t. There’s too much good stuff to work on for the future. We are all learning. Even hotshot entrepreneurs like you. We all look up to you, but not everyone loves you (I think you know that).

I would not be surprised to see Doterati be your Christmas Child. It could literally help to demonstrate that other side of you that we haven’t seen much of (at all) over the Orlando years. As I said on the OP, “the jury is out, but I’m hopeful”. And I meant that. I sense that everyone else is too.

Sure, we could all slap up our own little organizations, but we’d like the larger tech players in O-town to be a part of it, if not central players, without dominating it or controlling it (viz a viz Microsoft). If that’s what you, Izea, and the others have done (as you say have - and we’re all trusting you), then this thing will explode into something great. But I’m sure you realize that if this goes south somehow, it will probably be your last hurrah in Orlando. Not a threat, just a reality. So, I’m fully willing (as are many people I believe) to set aside differences on PPP for the purpose of something far greater. Just don’t take it for granted. That’s all I hear everyone saying.

As for the coffee, I hope you are too busy to have coffee with every potential detractor. You can’t sell a salesman. I’ll be sold by the future, not convincing words over coffee. But I’ll make a point to say hi at the next conference I see you at.

@Alex Rudloff: Good points all. What you said.

@Dan Kinchen: I hear you and I think (hopefully!) that I addressed some of what you said above in my first comment. Not exactly sure why you are “offended” by this post. I think if you pour through my other posts, you’ll find some that are far more offensive .

And I wouldn’t categorize this as “bad press”. Hell, I’m not sure there even is such a thing. It’s critical and concerned, but I joined, put the little “badge” on the post and might even put it in the sidebar at some point. Just didn’t send out a giant “join the Doterati” bandwagon type of post and brought forth a few questions that, for the moment, seem to have been addressed well here by yourself and others. Read my post on Planned Parenthood. That’s bad press. No reprieve.

Just so you know, I declined your “friend” offer on Doterati because I just have a habit (probably a dumb bad habit) of not friending folks I haven’t met in person. Yeah, very 90’s of me, I know. I’m still sticking the old school definition of friend for now though. Something about someone having 850 “friends” just makes me see stars circling over my head. I’ve alluded to this (and other social networking problems) here and here. And some of that stuff still hasn’t been solved.

@Renee Menkova, Robert Dempsey, and Greg Rollett: Got it. Points well made and heard loud and clear. Now put that crowd wisdom on Ning so you don’t get 300 more peeps/bloggers/coders wondering the same stuff. You are hereby commended fully (makes sign of cross and bows).

@Mark Krupinski: As to Count One, I plead guilty. Yeah, fast growth can make managing a pain. A good pain. But don’t shoot the messenger just yet (like that plea has ever worked). I’m just sayin’ what a lot of folks are thinking already. Glad to see it’s being addressed as quickly as possible.

As to Count Two, I plead innocent. I’m no Twitter nut, so I’ll decline your offer to search through all your “tweets”. Man, just sayin’ that word gives me the heeby-jeebies. I’ll just concede and assume you are right. You know what you’ve tweeted…. . But, by “snarky” maybe I used the word wrong. I meant to say “less than forthright”. You aren’t REALLY following me. You aren’t a friend or a fan. You are using the Twitter thing as a promo tool for Doterati. And while okay, legal, and in accordance with their TOS, it’s just sort of less-than. You aren’t the only one, so I hardly blame you, but as this practice spreads, I can see Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms closing that loop because, well, it’s annoying. In this case, yes, I did discover something that looks to be good. But if every freaking company started doing this (Walmart, Shell Oil, Greenpeace), etc., we’d all log off Twitter never to return. That’s what I mean by Snarky.

As to Count 3, I fully agree. I think you and I are saying exactly the same thing, just from different angles. Mathematically, it might be 25 degrees and 155 degrees, but we are still on the “right” side of the circle. Okay, that was a bit geeky, but hopefully you see what I’m saying. But I hear you loud and clear. I’m very community-oriented, running two decent community sites here in Brevard - just didn’t push a lot of that in the OP probably.

You want me to delete your cell/email from your comment?

Lawrence,

Great replies and I commend you for taking the time to respond to each one of us.

I think your feedback on the Ning site with an “About Us” section is vital and I really appreciate your feedback. Something so obvious should have been added at day one.

As for twitter, I guess I could easily take a “pulse” on the community via my own twitter account. When I was asked to take over the account - my goal was to mirror my own account. Again, lesson learned but I still want to to be an account that offers interesting tech/media/marketing news now - see my tweet yesterday re disney & google 3-d (http://twitter.com/doterati/statuses/827993043)

As for my contact information - leave it up. I believe in an open door policy for anything - good or bad. A word of warning, if you call my cell after 10 PM & wake the kids, you’ll have to deal with my wife - think Joe Pesci in Goodfellas ;)

Again, great post and great comments. I love this discussion and something good came out of it.

war Miami Dolphins (I’m a fan too)

Have a great weekend.

Cheers,

Mark.

I appreciate your responses and do see your concerns. I look forward to making this community more transparent, yet stronger and built together, not just by 1 or 2 people, or 1 or 2 companies. I believe that Doterati is a great start.

Looking forward to seeing you at one of our events and helping build this thing!

Hey Lawrence, I understand the cause for concern.

I appreciate folks like you and Alex for getting the discussion started and getting me to take a closer look here. I now feel like I understand this movement a bit more, even if we had to have a little mud-slinging before all this stuff could come out.

I was initially turned off by the recruitment efforts of the members of doterati. I felt like I was just being friend collected because of my linkedin profile. I’m interested in seeing what doterati turns into. I met Dan K. a couple of barcamps ago and he was describing much of what doterati seems to be going for, which is nice to see he followed through on it. To me that shows real passion.

As for the rest, the dust will settle and we’ll move forward. Just ensure that it is inclusive and recognizes that there are many groups that already exist in Orlando, all striving for the same thing. This isn’t middle earth, so no (r|th)ing need rule them all.

Isn’t Tara Lamberson Ted Murphy’s live-in girlfriend?

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