Building trusting relationships from blogging

In the past few months I've wrote several postings on trust and how blogging is part of the way I build my social networks. Today I found a quote on David Weinbergers blog, that is a nice illustration of what I mean:

Paolo and I know each other through our weblogs and decided to meet in person. (We got a little encouragement from Marc Canter. Thanks, Marc!) We had a great time. We talked about weblogs as building webs of trust. I met Paolo already knowing him through his weblog. I trusted him before I met him, and I had good reason to trust him. We were able to start talking as if we had been friends for months, which in a sense we had been. The Web is rewiring the real world. Just not fast enough.

It really is quite exciting how blogging takes effect on first meetings with people you've blogged with. That to me is what made my visit to KM in Europe in London last year so worthwhile. It is also the reason why I am still hesitating whether to visit the blogtalk conference in Vienna next month or not. On the one hand I think it will be a great gathering of interesting people, people I've interacted with through blogs, and would very much like to meet in person. On the other hand, I don't know if I am willing to cough up the money to go to Vienna, as it will be a private trip and the week after the conference I will already be travelling to Liechtenstein on my own expenses too. Maybe I just need some more convincing of you guys! :D

UPDATE (April 3rd 2003): No convincing needed anymore, I've decided to go. So May 23rd and 24th, I'll be at Blogtalk in Vienna

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(posted by Ton Zijlstra at April 1, 2003 08:22 PM)