Over at Laughing Squid Scott Beale has posted an interesting video that Eddie Codel created in which people tell stories about their first experience with Laughing Squid.
For those not of San Francisco, Laughing Squid is an independent hosting company for creative types in the Bay Area. Laughing Squid is something akin to, if not exactly the same as, Zoomshare. In any case, the Squid List came first and is the way to keep up on the art & tech scene in San Francisco. If your in the Bay Area and don’t know of the Squid List, your missing out, in my humble opinion and for anyone who ever finds themselves in San Fran with some time on their hands, check the list. To be sure the scene might not be to everyone’s tastes, but if you want to get a true feel of San Francisco; you need to try it at least once.
Anywho, I first found out about the Squid List indirectly not that long after moving to the Bay Area from a co-worker back in ’98. One good thing about working for a start-up company during the ‘dot-com boom’ with a bunch of 20 and 30-year olds, you found out quickly about the places to be. It would probably take to long to talk about Burning Man – which I have never truly gotten to experience first hand – or Webzine in this posting, but suffice it to say I’ve meet Scott and Eddie and had some interesting times. I even ran Laughing Squid for the Labor Day weekend a few years back while the rest of San Francisco played in the desert.
While ‘the boom’ went ‘bust’ (I use those terms loosely because they over simplify the 1996 to 2002 timeframe quite a bit, something I know a bit about) it is great to see that the creative drive beyond the popularization of the Web is still going strong in the Bay Area. When I get the chance to I try to check out Scott and Eddie’s blogs to get an idea on the latest happenings as, alas, I no longer live in the Bay Area.
Even so, I wear my Laughing Squid t-shirt with pride and still keep my coffee cup on hand, just in case. The tentacle has a long reach.