It was mesh-ilicious

The mesh meet-up at the Charlotte Room last night was another great event. Lots of people, many of whom I’ve never met before and, more important, some great energy and excitement about what’s happening on the Web these days. I got to meet Gareth Cull, who recently started Newsbyu.ca – a Digg-like news and social networking site. (I did an interview with him a couple of weeks ago that can be found here).

I also had a chat with Shaun Rotman and Raj Ghatalia, who work with a start-up called The Venice Chronicles. To be honest, I’m not really sure what the Venice Chronicles does/is other than it’s an “online community where you interact in a colourful Venetian masquerade”. Raj, you’ve got to work on your elevator pitch…:) I signed up for the beta today so it will be interesting to see what’s involved.

I had a fascinating discussion with Kent Qing Yu, an MBA student at the Schulich School of Business, about the Internet in China. Ken said one of the more interesting developments is how multi-national brands such as Google, eBay and Yahoo have failed to extend their dominance into the Chinese online market.

If anyone’s looking for an experienced newspaper/online editor, touch base with Neil Sanderson, who has just moved back to Canada after 15 years in New Zealand.

Thanks to Leesa Barnes, who was kind enough to do a bunch of podcast interviews. And thanks to Mark McKay from Blogto.com, who shot some video on why people are so excited about Web 2.0.