2012 on Facebook

I've been getting some (remarkably) nice comments about my new profile pic, so here's Bergi van Bergos's original from which it was cropped, taken spontaneously in a hotel bar (after fsw2011) in Berlin last year.

'd forgotten about this one. Gives me so much joy. I didn't say enough about the circumstances 12 years ago. It might well have been the first time I met Bavarian Bergi, Thomas Bergwinkle, in person. We were staying in the same hotel, so after the conf* we had a beer in the bar. He'd got a nice camera with him. As well as being another semweb devotee (a bloody good coder), he's also a photographer (and filmmaker, etc etc). Mentioned that he did band photos. Ooh ooh ooh - please please please take a Pop Star photo of me!! Literally a couple of minutes later he'd got this. Absolutely perfect.

• Federated Social Web Europe Conference 2011. It drew a lot of the movers & shakers of the period, many familiar names/faces. Not sure what drew me to it - I think it was a case of intuitive "must-go". Also - Berlin! Everyone saw the way the wind was blowing with centralized silo socials, several presented "Facebook Killer" apps. I don't think any of which went anywhere. But there were also a good few bits of tech innovation around the federated/open space, I believe most of those have stood the test of time, now part of the background.