O’Reilly’s European offices have just launched a new blog devoted to tracking news from interesting people in the territories they support. It’s called oreillygmt, but despite the localizing name, they say “We plan to bring you the low-down on tech culture from Iceland, Russia, South Africa and every place in between.”
Craig Smith, one of the folks behind the blog, wrote in email: “Josette [Josette Garcia, one of the other organizers] has cajoled Jono Bacon and Greg McCarroll into posting for us, and Juantomas Garcia has agreed to interview Miguel de Icaza, (though we’re not quite sure how much Miguel knows about this as yet!) One of the great things about the site is it allows us to build on the many links Josette has forged with the technical community over the years.”
I’m really glad to see Craig and Josette getting into blogging. For too long, we’ve acted like just a book publisher in our international offices, rather than a company devoted to changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators. We’ve built a huge network of connections with cool people in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but because we haven’t had much in the way of conferences or online publishing in those markets, we haven’t always made the most of those connections.
This is also a good site to watch for news about upcoming local events in Europe especially, as well as technology user group news.