I went to a get together here at TechEd last night of bloggers and “aggregators” (sounds much better than “lurker”) who are here at the show, organized by Drew Robbins who runs TechEdBloggers.net.  It was really interesting to put some faces with the names.  There were also some interesting discussions on blogs and blogging.  Many seemed comfortable with the notion I put down a while ago (http://erablog.net/filters/12142.post) of communal validation.  Someone dubbed it a “web of trust” which I think is pretty appropriate.  The question also some up, “So who plays the role of VeriSign” in this web of trust.  I think the interesting part about blogging, at least in the technical community, is that that trust seems to be based on personal relationships rather than out outside “authority”.  Unlike in the UseNet world where it’s easy to forgo personal relationships in favor of the collective, blogging seems to foster personal relationships.  That’s a big change from the general anonymity of the Web.  I’ll be interested to see where it goes from here.