WordPress Meetup: Putting Faces on the Tools

Last night was a new experience for me in two ways:

I also had some other new and nice experiences. For example:

Found out what a start-up incubator is – this event was hosted at the Varick Street Incubator.
Sat in the geekiest room full of people that I’ve sat in any time recently.
Realized that I’ve picked up a lot of useful experience related to WordPress over the last few years – much more than I had realized, and pretty good judged against many of the other geeks (though certainly not all of them).
Nearly met the guy who created Zemanta, which I think is in a class by itself as far as promising blogging tools.
Met and spoke at length one of the guys who helped create nrelate, which I think is one of the most important tools available to a WordPress blogger. It is simple, easy to use, provides good value, and has lots of potential for refinement and new features, in my opinionated opinion.
Got a detailed explanation from an insider about just how snazzy Disqus is.

And to follow that up, next week I am going to another local event where I will see my own personal blog-hero speak: Michael Lopp, of Rands in Repose (hosted at Etsy). 🙂

Image credit: Wikipedia