I try not to take sides, even when it involves my friends, until I know both sides of the story clearly. Still, I don’t know Rebecca except by reputation, and I know Corinna personally, so I took her words at face value.

This morning, I got an e-mail from Rebecca, trying to clear up the situation. Without commentary on its contents, I thought I’d post it here so other people could see her side of the story.

First of all, you can read what Corinna had to say over on her blog. Then, you can read the below e-mail and see what you think.

Hi Dan,

I just wanted to clear the air about the Best of 604 Awards as I’ve seen some chatter lately on Twitter.

They have and always will be people’s choice awards. People nominate and people vote, me or judges are and never will be involved. For the 2009-2010 event I opened up a Twitter account and updated the home page http://bestof604.com.

I’m not sure why anyone would think they are “banned”, I’m not even sure in what context. I have a complete list of winners available here, listing all 1st, 2nd and 3rd place bloggers:
http://www.miss604.com/2008/12/best-of-604-winners-and-the-morning-after.html

The event hasn’t even been setup this year but I did announce nominations will once again be open March 1st. That’s about all the planning that has taken place so far.

If you have any concerns, please let me know as this is 100% about the blogs that people love and want to support — from mainstream news to knitting, it doesn’t matter.

Cheers,

Rebecca

So that’s what Rebecca had to say. I’m not going to pass any judgement in either direction yet. There’s still some details I feel like I’m missing before I make my final judgement, but hopefully this will help clear the air, and not fan the flames.

Or at least, that’s the theory. Having attended, it seems to me like most people came for the spectacle and the shoulder-rubbing, but no one came with chequebook in hand – or at least, few people did. I came with every intention of bidding, but it seemed at points like I was the only one. I quickly became paranoid, lest I inadvertently bid on (and win) every auction. The excitement seemed to be limited to the people trying to get everyone bidding, but not to the bidders themselves. Everyone came broke or reluctant. I was perfectly willing to engage in a spirited bidding war on many of the dates, but knew that I would rapidly surpass what everyone else was willing to bid, and find myself broke much faster than intended.

In the end, I’m sure the money raised was a big help, but it seems like more people who came to participate in the festivities instead of sit on the sidelines would have made it a more spirited and lucrative evening.

Among the people auctioned off were several people from Twitter, including Raul Pacheco (@hummingbird604), Jules Morgan (@julesjulesjules), Chris Matheson (@cognoscento), April Smith (@aprilfilms) and myself, but what seemed to end up happening was we all bid on each other. I nearly won Hez’s auction, I temporarily won Jules’s, and Chris won mine and eventually outbid me on Jules as well. Despite everyone being bid on, getting people to start bidding was like pulling teeth, and most of the prizes were only bid on one or two times, it seems.

Ironically, the final auction, the one that was held when the party had essentially wound down already and most people seemed to be leaving (and the one held two whole hours after the festivities were *supposed* to start), was the most lucrative. @Zoeyjane (Terra) was the last individual to be auctioned, and went for, in the end, $270 – about $90 more than any other auction went for. Despite her trepidation about the whole affair, Terra fetched the largest sum of all the participants, so congratulations to her for that.

In the end, I don’t think anyone went for what they were really worth, and a more spirited bidding war would have benefitted the Federation much more, as well as made the evening more exciting and energized, and a better time would have been had by all. Still, it seems like people had fun, socialized, and gave some money to a worthy cause, so it’s hard to complain about a good event not being better.

Thanks goes to Lorraine (@Raincoaster) for organizing the show and Chris for hosting us at the Police Museum, and congratulations to Lorraine and the Federation for an excellent (and hopefully profitable!) evening. And of course, congratulations to Terra for being the Federation’s breadwinner for the evening. ;)

So what about you? What did you accomplish this week?

The new media forum is aimed at inspiring and engaging “those who want to tell stories in a more interactive space.”
It’s a tall order and one I’m happy to be taking part in, joining writer and social media evangelist Monica Hamburg, creative producer and social media consultant Carol Sill and creative producer and writer Erica Hargreave on the morning’s “Social Media How To” panel.

Among the people featured are Vancouver’s A-list social media celebrities, and also myself. I’m not sure how I stumbled into this, but it’s pretty exciting.

My task, as I understand it, will be to do what I do best, or at least most often: tweet. We’ll be in the audience and at the brunch, talking about what’s going on, and sharing our experiences with the world, and showing how interactive of a forum social media outlets like Twitter can be.

I’m pretty excited to see the masters in action and to meet the few socmed legends I haven’t had a chance to rub shoulders with (is that a real expression, or did I just make that up?), so that will be awesome. It’ll also be nice to finally be recognized for my ability to talk pretty much endlessly on Twitter despite having nothing to say, and I’m glad I can put one of my few talents to good use.

If you’re interested, you should also consider checking out the film festival proper, which looks to be an exciting showcase worth seeing.

If you didn’t get a chance to see me trendsurf on Twitter at the Twestival, you’ll can have another opportunity at the New Media Forum for only $75 for the day, which includes access to all the forums and I’ll even pretend like I recognize you from the internets in front of your friends, so they think you’re famous. If you’re going to come, though, you should really pick up the full monty for $145 which gets you in to all the films as well.

I’ll be there with special guest Leah Bancroft, who both is a woman and watches films, which will be a great synergy I think, so pick up your passes, come down next week, and say hello, and I promise to at least act like I recognize you from your Twitter avatar even though your name just barely escapes me.

Update: Erica pointed out in the comments that there’s no official brunch, but if we all bring a bagel or something we can eat them some time in the morning and then you can tell everyone you were at an exclusive brunch with me and then everyone will want to hang around with you in the hopes that they can get tickets to Fleetwood Mac or something.

What I was referring to as ‘brunch’ is actually the reception, which is at the end of the day, which isn’t really when you receive things because that’s when everyone’s leaving, but it doesn’t really matter because there’s going to be beer. I was going to say ‘free beer’ but I didn’t want this to turn out like the whole brunch fiasco did and have an angry mob telling everyone I promised them free beer.

Expensive restaurant

Customer: I’d like the ham and swiss, but I don’t like it when the lettuce hangs off the edge of the roll, can you trim that? Also, no pepper unless it’s freshly ground, and I’d like a dash of sea salt on it, instead of regular salt, and could you make sure that there’s no green on the tomato before you put it on? I like them soft, but not mushy, nice and firm and ripe. And is the swiss cheese from France? Good, and if you could lightly toast the bun, but not as long as you normally would, I like just a hint of crispiness.

Server: Certainly sir, would you care for a glass of wine with that? I might suggest a Sicilian frappato, we have a lovely Cerrasuolo di Vittoria.

Customer: Yes, that sounds excellent, thank you.

Cheap restaurant

Server: Here’s your chili sir.

Customer: I ordered a ham sandwich.

Server: Are you sure?