2008-08-02 10:10:15 -0700, originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

If you’re one of the ten or so Canadians that have bought an iPhone since its launch on July 11th, then you might want to check out our site via your mobile Safari.

The mobile version of Metroblogging Vancouver has been up and going for a few months now, however this might be the first time that a large portion of us Canucks get a crack at decent mobile internetting.

If Metblogs is a city, hub.metblogs is the playground. We kept hearing from people that one of their favorite parts of Metblogs was meeting and interacting with readers and writers from other parts of the world, as well as getting requests for more ways that readers could be involved besides just posting comments. We thought about this for a while and decided that with a network like this, a giant community area where folks from all over the world could hang out, post photos and videos, talk with each other, form groups, play games, send messages, and do about a million other things was probably a pretty fun idea. The Hub is that.

If you have any tech ideas or suggestions join this group and speak up. See you on hub.metblogs!

As you might have noticed we’ve added one new blogger since my last advert pleading for new authors to come help out at Metroblogging Vancouver [mbv]. I’d like to welcome castewar to the blog, and he’s already started off with his feet on the ground running full steam ahead with a number of great posts.

We’ve got a few more in the wings in various stages of undress, just climbing into their costumes before their cue. Which perhaps does not go with the previous metaphor of running, nor the picture of the large Canadian Naval ship in Coal Harbour that I took on Canada Day that’s sitting just above these words.

The point is we’ve got some good stuff on the way, but we’re still looking for new authors. While some blogs might be looking to assign authors to a beat, locking someone in as the theatre blogger, or food blogger, we’re pretty free form here. You can blog about anything you want as long as it’s got something to do with Vancouver.

That’s right, we put it in our title so we figure we’d better stick to the Vancouver topics.

We’re looking for someone who can commit to a semi-regular blogging schedule, aiming for an average of two to three posts a week. However we’re all human, and we understand that people go through periods where life, school and work can get overwhelming so we’re pretty flexible here.

If you’re interested throw me an email at jefferysimpson at metblogs dot com. If you’ve got any questions, well that email works for that too.

Maybe you’ve been hearing about this Twitter thing, or maybe for you it’s old hat by now. Last week I explained how Twitter and the kindness of strangers helped me find my way when I got lost in Burnaby [mbv], and now I’d like to take a page from Blogging LA’s book [bla] and present a list of some great Twitter reads from Vancouver.

If you’re not quite clear on what Twitter is, or why you should care about it, check out this wonderful short video [cc].

1. Buzz Bishop [twt]: Vancouver radio personality and tech writer, Buzz is an active Twitterer and often uses the service to reach out to readers for ideas for his column in 24 Hours.
2. Sarah! [twt]: Sarah’s my fiancee’s roommate, and a very funny Twitterer.
3. Raul [twt]: There are different levels of Twitter frequency, and Raul certainly is active.  Following him on Twitter is kind of like following about three feet behind him wearing a long trench coat.  If you get my drift.
4. Tod Maffin [twt]: The CBC tech radio guy was of course an early adopter of Twitter, and still uses it regularly today to promote his work and share a bit of his personal life.
5. Vancouver Metblogs [twt]: Oh how tacky, I worked in a little self-promotion here.  That’s right, ten minutes before everyone abandoned Twitter for FriendFeed we totally set up a Twitter account for Metroblogging Vancouver.  With Vancouver specific updates, as well as notices of when we post something new it gives us that Web 2.0 street cred we crave.

Long time readers might have noticed that a lot of our regular posters have not been blogging around these parts much anymore. Even casual readers will notice that for a group blog having one author is a tad unusual. I won’t lie to you, I’m feeling a little lonely here at Vancouver Metblogs as I try to hold up the fort all on my own.

Which is why I’m putting the call out for authors. That’s right Metroblogging Vancouver is looking for new bloggers and you could be one of them.

What’s the catch? There is no catch. You just need to be able to blog twice-to-thrice a week about this great city of Vancouver. You also need to live in Vancouver, or the surrounding burbs, because let’s face it a Vancouver blog written by people in Calgary or Toronto would kind of suck.

So if you’re interested in being a part of the world wide project that is Metroblogging, then please send me an email [jefferysimpson at metblogs dot com] and come aboard. Whether your passion is blogging about local restaurants, other local blogs, parks, the Canucks, the Lions, riding the Skytrain or anything to do with Vancouver, we’d love to have you.

It’s meetup time again, and after months and months of no getting together the Metroblogging Vancouver crew want you to come on out.  All of our bloggers and you the readers are invited, as we come together to drink, chat and drink. 

Will our adventures be blogable?  Will we have Flickr ready poses all worked out?  I say yes and again yes.  Our special guest for the evening will be Metroblogging co-founder Sean Bonner whose in Vancouver for a few days.

This Tuesday May 20th come down to the Library Square Pub at 7:30 pm and partake in the fun.  If you can please RSVP in the comments.  Metbloggers please check the authors’ forums or email me to confirm that you can make it.

Starting today Metroblogging Vancouver allows our readers the ability to post video comments, so now we can finally see you.  This is all thanks to the hard work of the people at the Metroblogging mothership, along with Seesmic [sm].  I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, but the interface does look pretty cool.

In hopes of getting more great content up on Vancouver Metblogs we have been recruiting for new authors for the last little while [mbv], and we’re still looking.  However our first new author in quite some time has came aboard yesterday with a stellar first post [mbv]. 

Please stop by his post and welcome Stephen Rees, who has had a very authoritative blog about transportation [sr] for as long as I’ve been reading local blogs.  I’m very excited to have him on board, and judging from his first post I think he’s going to bring a strong voice on transporation and urban planning issues. 

Everyone of the authors here at Vancouver Metblogs have their own blogs where they also blog.  Every so often I like to go through the blogs of some of my fellow Metblogs authors [mbv] and highlight a few of their recent great posts.

• Carol Brown - carolbrowne.com ::Carol writes about attending one of the series of free concerts that have been held at Canada Place over the last few Wednesdays where she saw Kelowna band Kinship [cb].
• Ghosty - Reverb ::Ghosty has begun to take public transit and has noticed how isolated everyone seems to be as they travel to and fro [rvb].  Is it just that our iPods and mobile phones keep us from connecting to people, or is there something more to this isolation?
• Rebecca Bollwitt - Miss604.com ::Rebecca has a lot of good guest blogging up from SXSW, but to highlight a post by her I’m pointing out her list of songs that she’s listening to [m604].  I agree with her on Hospital Musicbeing the best of 2007, but Nada Surf haven’t done anything for me since I was all emo about not being cool and they released “Popular”.
• Rod - rodtempleton.net :: Rod’s got an article about The Guardian’s list of the world’s 50 most powerful blogs [rt], which apparently include the lolcats meme.  Rod notes that most of the blogs listed aren’t tech blogs.
• Jeffery Simpson - That ring of confidence :: Hey that’s me.    Picking a post to highlight is like picking one of my own children to feed to the wolves.  Sadly I’m not allowed to have children due to my ideas on the role of wolves in childcare.  My most recent post is about how my life is too dull to blog about [jks].  Doesn’t that just make you want to click that link?

As Travis noted there’s still a few things going a bit wonky around here following the move from Moveable Type to WordPress.  Add to that the fact that we did a minor redesign and things are going a bit sideways at the moment.  After the jump I’ll talk a bit about the issues we know about, and what the status on them is. If you’re not interested in the nuts and bolts of how a blog runs then feel free to not read any further.   (more…)