So I’ve been in Seattle the last couple of days for the SocialMediaCamp Seattle and Mashable SummerMash Party. It’s really been a blast.

The SocialMediaCamp was organized by the amazing Erica O’Grady.  It brought together this really cool swath of the Seattle Web Community.

I got to meet a lot of folks from big to small companies… from people that were just into social media as a hobby and from people that were social media consultants as their job.

The best part was, despite that I was an outsider to the Seattle Web Community, they welcomed me with open arms.  I got the chance to meet and get to know a lot of amazing folks.

Another highlight was being introduced to the local-Seattle company that was responsible for the Web app Whrrl.  This is REALLY cool.  It’s kind of like Yelp meets really neat location-based services.  I’ll be writing more about the app later.

I also got to spend sometime with the folks at Yoono. They’re a social browser plugin that does similar things to Flock but doesn’t require you to get a new browser.  It’s pretty neat but is still in its early stages.  The people behind the company were REALLY cool.

Later that evening, I went to the Mashable Summer Mash party.  That was really nice.  It had this awesome warehouse venue, which is MUCH bigger then any of the venues we’ve used for party’s in DC, which was nice.  It gave you room to breathe.

All in all this was a SUPER successful trip.  I can’t wait to come back and hang with the folks in Seattle.

So… I’m sitting here in a Starbucks in Seattle.  It’s been a great weekend!!!

Upon arriving here, I was just kind of tooling around and seeing the sights.  I was meeting up with some friends for dinner later.

Unbeknownst to me, my buddy Saul from FreshBooks just happened to be in Seattle as well.  We ended up meeting up and he joined my posse for dinner.

How did we end up finding each other?  We are Twitter friends.  I was twittering about being in Seattle and he saw it and sent me a message.

It was cool to see first hand how Twitter can help with starting serendipitous adventures in your life.  Saul metup with us and we all had a grand time.

Have you had any serendipitous adventures because of Twitter?

So… yesterday, when I found the link to get early access to the iPhone 2.0 software, of course I tried it and loaded it up right away.  (Yes, I am that guy.)

I then proceeded to download a bunch of apps to my phone.

Now there are just some apps that I don’t get why they are apps.  For example, there is Facebook and the New York Times.  Their iPhone apps are almost exactly the same as their iPhone Web site.

As the implementations of mobile Web browsers improve across mobile phones, increasing the use of new Web technologies (better CSS and JavaScript), there is a chance you’ll be able to use the iPhone Web site again.

I can’t imagine that Apple will ever license the iPhone OS so you’ll never be able to see your iPhone app used on anything but an iPhone.

Now I can understand Sega’s Super Monkeyball.  That is a REALLY fun game for the iPhone.  I can’t imagine you’ll be able to do that with a browser for a long long long time so I understand if you wanna make that an iPhone app.

But… why does Twitteriffic need to be an iPhone app? Didn’t we get EXACTLY the same thing with Hahlo?  Actually, I think Hahlo has more and better functionality.

With iPhone 3G, a lot of the speed, responsiveness, and interactivity issues with iPhone Web sites should be resolved.

Yeah… so when you start to think about time and resources around whether your company should build an iPhone app, ask yourself whether or not you’re doing it because it’s cool or you’ll get a lot of people to use it.

Am I crazy?  What do you think?

Business Week columnist and author of the book “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good” Sarah Lacy will be stopping in Washington DC for her User-Generated Book Tour.

So as detailed in my last post my first stop on the User Generated Book Tour will be Washington D.C.– a city I haven’t been to since an 8th grade class trip. This time around I will not be going to the Washington Monument or the White House. I will be meeting lots of entrepreneurs and Web folks!

Everyone should come to the Twin Tech Party, where she’ll be giving a small talk, doing some Q&A, as well as selling and signing books.

Sarah is someone who’s gotten to experience technology and Web communities both inside and outside of the Valley.  I’m excited to hear what kind of advice and insight she’ll share with the Washington DC tech community

So… you coming to the party?

UPDATE: According to TechDirt, all of these regs already exist and that this letter is to loosen them.  Read their post: “Politician Using Twitter To Ignite Misleading Partisan Fight Over Politicians Posting To Twitter.“

In my opinion, even with the letter, the regulations still seems unnecessary.

UPDATE 2: Tim O’Reilly has a good blog post on this too.

**********

Now this down right pisses me off.

US House of Representatives Democratic leadership is recommending to the Committee on House Administration that they adopt unnecessary regulations about the use of social media by House members.

The concern is with House members posting content outside of the domain “house.gov”… like Twitter or YouTube.

One suggestion was that the committee put together a list of “approved” sites that meet House regulations.  Another was that any link to a external domain must have one of those damn annoying “Your Now Leaving the House of Representatives” pages, which just KILL the experience.

Rep. John Culberson has been a leader in social media within Congress.  He’s a frequent Twitterer and will post frequent videos on Qik of his activity.  He’s using social media to engage the members of his district as well as the country, if not the world.

The thought that Twitter or Qik would have to go before some type of committee review before people could use it frightens me.  Having worked at a government agency, I know how long this kind of thing would take.

This is supposed to be a government of “of the people.”  The people are on Twitter, Qik, Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace.  Congressional leadership should be encouraging members to use these sites and not discouraging it.

What does Congress have to hide that they want to block this stuff?

I ask you that write a blog post, a tweet, or record a video saying how much you appreciate that Rep. John Culberson is acting as a leader in social media within Congress and that you’d like more to follow his lead.

So… I’m going to Seattle this weekend.  I’m really excited.  I’ve never been to Washington state before.

Saturday I’ll be attending the SocialMediaCamp as well as Mashbable’s SummerMash party.  It should be a great weekend.

Anybody wanna meet up while I’m out there? I wanna stop by the Apple store, while I’m there, and pick up the new 3G iPhone.  Anyone else going?

Also… anything you folks would recommend doing while I’m out there?  I’d love to have the pinnacle of coffee experiences and I hear that Seattle is a good place for it.  Where else should I go?

Last night John Coston, Paul Sherman, and I had dinner at the new Capitol Hill burger place Good Stuff Eatery.  Yesterday was it’s grand opening.

The food was great and well worth the wait.  (I had never had a burger with a fried egg on it before. Definitely rocked my world.)

There was definitely a frenzied crowd… probably partially because they were hungry and partially because folks wanted to see Chef Spike who was on Season 4 of Top Chef.

John, Paul, and I had a great discussion about the local tech scene.  One thing we did notice is there’s a derth of Web/tech events happening on Capitol Hill.

We need to fix this.  What I’m thinking is… maybe once a month we’ll get together at Good Stuff Eatery to talk tech.  Who’s with me?

I have two more blogs that I’d highly recommend that you all read.

The blog Logic’s End is written by one of my classmates and best friends from college Louis Horton. He’s one of the smartest conservative poitical thinkers I know.  He’s a young and rising star.

Some of my fondest memories of college are of Louis, the gang, and I either debating politics, philosophy, or literature over beers or coffees.  I’ve learned so much from Louis and I’m confident you will be enlightened just as much.

Secondly, I’d recommend you all read the blog peregrine espresso. It’s written by the couple that’s putting in the new coffee shop at the location of the old Murky Coffee in Capitol Hill.

Just like me, I’m sure all of your hearts broke when the old Murky closed but I’m excited to see the new place and how it will help the Eastern Market area.

The blog is a great way to follow the opening of the new store.  I’m sure I’ll be there the day it opens.

My buddy Tom Bridge and his merry band of brethern (who used to write for Metroblogging DC) have just launched a new blog called “We Love DC.”

We’re going to be doing this a little bit differently than other blogs have done it. We’re going to be focusing on feature length content for our site, with an emphasis also on the hyperlocal microblogging.

I’m really excited about this blog.  These guys are great writers.  I’d highly recommend that you add it to your RSS reader.

I think the traditional Washington DC print media needs to be worried.  If I want to know what’s going on in DC, I’d more likely to go to a blog like “We Love DC” rather then picking up a paper edition of the Washington Post or City News.

Where do you all go to find out what’s happening in DC?  Any of you read some cool local Washington DC blogs?

The Sunlight Foundation has just released a really cool new project, PoliQuiz.

In celebration of Independence Day, we bring to you PoliQuiz, a new interactive political trivia game that provides a fun way for you to test your knowledge about their elected officials and the legislative process.

It’s AWESOME.  It was created by my friends Andrew, Ryan, and Arjun at Publi.us.  It even uses Clearspring’s Launchpad platform.

In addition to being a Web-head, I’m a big political nerd so I love this stuff.

What do you think? What score did you get?