Clear your calendars next weekend.

A few notable journalism and new media-savvy folks not entirely impressed with MPR’s Future of the News Conference have rallied together to launch their own event — The Other Future of News — and it’s actually happening.

It’s next Saturday at Spill the Wine from 10-5. More info here and here.

What impresses me even more than the passion and drive behind the event organizers is the way they used Google Wave to plan the event, including relevant use of the tool’s crowd-sourcing, instant polling and discussion thread capabilities.

It looks like a great event with great topics. But if nothing else, this event is worth it to me for that.

Can’t attend. Follow the hashtag #ofon.

Update: Just saw that I wasn’t the only one impressed with David Brauer’s use of Google Wave.

Update 2: RSVP here

The all-Twitter version.

• The James J Hill Library is on Twitter: @jjhill_library. Blogging, too. Matt the Librarian is doing an awesome job. Interesting insight as to how a business research library works.
• ThriftyLocalHipster’s website is still not operational, but they are putting all the happy hours and various events that they would post if they had a website on Twitter: @localhipster.
• You tell me whether @MPRMemberDrive is as annoying to read as it is to listen to. It does have some quirky behind the scenes stuff. I guess I don’t ever think about what it’s like to sit/work inside a radio studio. And official tweeter Jacquie Fuller (On-Air Fundraising Manager at MPR) has a sense of humor.
• The PiPress folks are using @MNvotes to attract election day votecasting stories. Tweet ’em your tales of polling place folly/woe/appalledness/crowds/whatever. You could probably tell ’em how pleasant and stress-free your early voting experience was, too. Use the hashtag #mnvotes. They’ve got some useful tidbits and factoids, too. And a terrible retweet from @MayorRTRybak (because the original was a terrible tweet).
• Jason DeRusha turned me on to Second Act, a store in Eden Prairie that sells discounted fancy TVs. I was perusing their website looking at electronicals that I really have no good reason to buy and I noticed that they are twittering at @secondact. That fact alone made it so much more likely that I would personally shop there. They’ve got some small business behind-the-scenes stuff and the occasional deal. And, apparently, their own fantasy football and baseball leagues. Guess what the prizes are….
• The Link is the latest local non-profit to jump into the social media fray with @thelinkmn. They’re still pretty new (to Twitter), but so far they have some tidbits about non-profits in general, issues specific to their mission (“Our mission is to build a supportive community network that links youth and their families to their inner strength through life skills, education, advocacy, supportive housing, and a dynamic network of social services to transform lives.”), and some things about what people in their organization are actually doing as part of their jobs. If they keep that up, I’d say it’s a great example of helping people to get to know their organization. (via @lisa_ray)
• Speaking of non-profits, the Nonprofits Assistance Fund (@NAFund) has certainly been a leader in using Twitter and teaching other NPs how to do the same.

The Twin Cities is celebrating National Park(ing) Day today. Participating Minneapolis parking spots are conveniently mapped for you. The Park(ing spot)s will be on display from 11am-2pm. There’s a community gathering/happy hour from 5pm-8pm sponsored by Community Design Group and Solutions Twin Cities. All the deets about the parks and today’s events are at TC Streets for People.

Solutions Twin Cities is also hosting a big ol’ game of Urban Capture the Flag on Northrop Mall tomorrow (Saturday, 9/20) at 4pm. Info and RSVP at that link.

Max went to the grand opening of the new W Hotel downtown, which I think of as “the Foshay, where Keys’ Cafe is.” He hated the event and liked the 29th-floor bar Prohibition. (When Max, as a cocktail connoisseur, says drinks are good, they are really good.) You should read his review as much for his opinion as for the fact that it’s very well written. It’s long, but it’s worth it.

Minnesota Public Radio now has an application in the iTunes App Store. It allows you to stream MPR’s three stations (news, classical, The Current) on your iPhone or iPod Touch. I couldn’t find any mention of this on MPR’s website, so thanks to Future Tense‘s Jon Gordon for the heads up.

MinnPost is hosting debate watching parties. See the presidential candidate debate on Friday, Sep 26, the VP candidate debate on Thursday, Oct 2, the Minnesota Senate candidate debate which is still TBD. All events hosted at Trocadero’s. Admission and snacks free, cash bar, RSVP required. Only open to MinnPost members — which technically means it’s not free — so you can join online or at the door.

The Minnesota Campaign for Change (i.e., the Obama campaign) is hosting four National Security Townhalls this weekend. Saturday in Duluth and St Cloud, Sunday in Rochester and the Twin Cities. Free and open to the public. RSVP required.

Overheard at the Wedge Co-op: “Oh no, I forgot my canvas bag in the car because I was so engrossed listening to MPR in the parking lot.” –@kaeti

Someone set up a Twitter account called @MPRmn and automated the posting of items from Minnesota Public Radio‘s RSS feed to Twitter with Twitterfeed. MPR made a good faith effort to contact the individual and when that didn’t work they went to Twitter management and asked if they could get in touch with the account holder. Twitter management talked to the account holder. Now MPR has the name @MPRmn; the original account holder has the account (with all the followers) and a different screen name (@MPRmnfan). MPR never talked directly to the previous account holder.

So now @MPRmnfan is accusing MPR of bullying.

Minnesota Public Radio contacted Twitter to stop these updates. Apparently MPR does not value the Twitter community. 10:59 PM August 23, 2008 from web

Several people have commented on how valuable this service is. I expect legal threats from large corporations, not MPR. 10:59 PM August 23, 2008 from web

It’s unfortunate that Minnesota *PUBLIC* Radio does not want to make their news public, and that this service has to go. 11:03 PM August 23, 2008 from web

Instead, people who have been following @MPRmn will now likely get a human with a bias filtering the news articles linked on Twitter. 11:04 PM August 23, 2008 from web

No more news updates will come from this account. Direct your complaints about MPR’s abusive bullying to @bcollinsmn now @N614EF. 1 day ago from web

According to MPR’s Interactive Producer Julia Schrenkler:

@pfhyper yep, fed by MPR directly now. we tried to contact the person who set it up but there was no info. @ replies will be seen by staff. about 4 hours ago from web

@taulpaul threat? no. MPR tried to contact him/her, couldn’t, no contact info/transparency. @MPRmn reassigned to MPR by Twitter, by req. about 3 hours ago from web

@taulpaul it seems Twitter reassigns the name and lets the old acct holder pick a new name on that acct, retaining the followers etc about 3 hours ago from web

@taulpaul tried to contact to ask for acct access via twitterfeed/twitter. not sure what language Twitter used when they contacted him/her about 2 hours ago from web

Hoo, boy, where to begin?

#1: @MPRmnfan’s righteous indignation over MPR’s thwarting of the “public service” they were supposedly providing is laughable. They are not providing any information that is not already available on MPR’s website. The accusations that MPR is trying to keep information from the public eye, that MPR is biased, and that MPR doesn’t value the Twitter community are just ludicrous. (Okay, you could argue MPR has bias, but it’s not on account of their Twitter policy.)

#2: Dumping an RSS feed into Twitter is not valuable. Period. (Unless you’re the Daily Planet and your RSS feeds are abominable.) Especially when an organization already has a pretty good Twitter presence, which MPR does. The whole point of having a Twitter presence as an organization is that there are people behind it. If I just want RSS, there are feedreaders and Cullect and Friendfeed and all sorts of aggregation tools for that. How is a human vetting which news stories from the website go to Twitter any more biased than what goes up on MPR’s website in the first place?

#3: MPR did not ask you to set up this account. You are squatting. You are using their name and logo. It’s in bad faith and in poor taste. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to request access to an account that has their name on it. It was nice of them to ask instead of just slapping you with a C&D.

#4: What does Bob Collins have to do with anything? Sure, dude is cranky, but how is that related to any of this?

@MPRmnfan’s rationale is beyond ridiculous and the response sounds like a temper tantrum at best.

This isn’t just about Twitter and what’s good and bad Twitter etiquette. It’s about misrepresenting yourself as part of an organization and then having the nerve to be indignant when they call you on it.

I wonder if they go through this exercise again with The Current’s Twitter accounts.

Minnesota Public Radio is head and shoulders above the rest of Minnesota’s major media outlets in terms of audience involvement and has been for a long time, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised that they’d host their own BarCamp-style event, but it blew my mind grapes a little.

Along with the MinneBar/MinneDemo folks, MPR presents PublicRadioCamp.

Minnesota Public Radio produces tons of really interesting content, data, audio, meta-data and feeds. PublicRadioCamp will be a day spent collaboratively remixing and mashing up these goodies.

In addition to their public feeds and data-sources… we’ll have the same highly-granular access to audio-clips, transcriptions, photos, etc. used by their own newsroom. Their newsroom uses them to create their on-air and web-stories. What could you do with them?

Expect studio tours and other goodies.

Saturday, July 12th, 2008, 9:00am (registration at 8:30am), at The UBS Forum at MPR studios in downtown St Paul.

I have nothing to offer in terms of actual technical skills, but this looks like great fun to attend (and I’m unavailable that day, dammit). I hope there’s some sort of organized public display of the results.

(via @sandentotten)