We had the pleasure last evening of sharing spotstory with The Historical Society of Watertown in Watertown, MA. We’d like to thank the Society for sharing their time with us, and especially Karl H. Neugebauer for making the arrangements.

(Also, Kudos to Aron for figuring out in 30 seconds how to get us on the net via his phone wired to his MacBook wired to my Dell!)

One of the best parts of my spotstory experience has been attending events like these, meeting different people, showing them the site and seeing them get excited by the idea.

If you’re affiliated with a historic society we’d love to come by one of your meetings for a few minutes and show you spotstory. We’re also happy to meet groups interested in social media or location based services. Just drop us a line.

San Jose, CA. $1100 for two days with early bird registration, and $1500 after that. Huh. To quote:

There’s no better place to meet the people behind the mash-ups and platforms, and the folks looking ahead to the future of geospace. Where 2.0 is the one place where corporate decision-makers can meet the people building the next wave of location- and mapping-enabled technology; where CTOs swap ideas with grassroots developers building mash-ups; where community activists network with venture capitalists looking for the next investment opportunity.

Aw, shucks! “Folks”! “Mash-ups”! “Grassroots”! “Activists”! “Mash-ups” again! Yeah, we’re all “2.0″ and got a new paradigm going on here!

But you know, were gonna need AT LEAST a cool G up front to discuss how we’re going to usher in a new age.

Yeah, that’s sarcasm, and I’ll stop it now.

I am a capitalist. I don’t expect these events to have the business model of Woodstock–the one in 1969 that is. Covering costs and taking something for your hard work and risk is something I wholly approve of and even feel should be emulated.

Where 2.0, however seems to border on the ridiculous. And it’s not just this conference–it’s all of the big name events.

I might be mistaken, but aren’t Aron and I exactly the sort of “grassroots developers” that are supposed to be attending this event? Aren’t we the people “behind the platforms and the mash-ups”?

Aren’t we the companies, who as part of this brave new world, are also supposed to be building companies on a few thousand dollars?

I’ve discovered another person who has enough of an interest in lamp posts to take pictures of them! Check out Gas Lamps of Jamaica Plain: a gallery of gas lamps in Jamaica Plain, MA. Amazingly, some of them are still functioning. I’ll have to make the trip into JP and check them out when it gets above freezing here.

(A couple days ago I revealed my own fascination with lamp posts.)

This evening we released a system update and sent out a round of beta invites. If you were expecting an invite from us and have not received it please let us know! If you’d like an invite, the sign-up can be found at the main web site.