Last year, on August 18th, I wrote of BarCamp that:
Next year I expect to see multiple satellite Bar Camps happening the world over, loosely joined via the web, bringing distributed collaboration and culture building to a much, much wider audience. Podcasted, Flickered, wikified, videographied and blogged like mad.
I wrote that before the first BarCamp ever happened. Before 300 people showed up at Ross Mayfield’s new offices… before Flock was shown publicly for the first time… before TechCrunch had 1,000 readers… before the Wired article or BBC feature… before we thought we were in Bubble 2.0. Before snark jumped the shark and the uncreatives got uncommon.
Let’s just say, a lot has happened in the past year.
In fact, a lot of BarCamps and spin-offs have happened (or been proposed) since the original: 4Camp, ArtCamp, BarCamp Paris, BarCampWashDC, BarCampAmsterdam, BarCampAmsterdamII, BarCampAtlanta, BarCampAustin, BarCampBangalore, BarCampBerlin, BarCampBirmingham, BarCampBoston, BarCampBrussels, BarCampCapeTown, BarCampChennai, BarCampChicago, BarCampDallas, BARCampDC, BarCampDelhi, BarCampDenver, BarCampEnschede, BarCampGrandRapids, BarCampHouston, BarCampHyderabad, BarcampJacksonville, BarCampKiev, BarCampLasVegas, BarCampLondon, BarCampLosAngeles, BarCampManchester, BarCampMumbai, BarCampNYC, BarCampOttawa, BarCampPaloAlto2005, BarCampParis, BarCampPhiladelphia, BarCampPhoenix, BarCampPortland, BarCampPune, BarCampQuebec, BarCampRDU, BarCampRDU, BarCampSanAntonio, BarCampSanDiego, BarCampSanFrancisco, BarCampSeoul, BarCampTdot, BarCampUtah, BarCampVienna, BarCampZurich, BarSeder, beCamp, BrainJams30Jan2006, CesCamp, CocoaDevHouse, DCamp (Palo Alto, CA), DHX: Dev House Ten, DrupalCampNYC, DrupalCampToronto, IndieFilmCamp, MashPitDallas, MashupCamp, MicroBarCampParis, MinneBar, MooseCamp, NPTECH Bar Camp, OpenHack Night San Diego, RecentChangesCamp, SeattleMindCamp, SlamCamp, TorCamp1 aka BarCampToronto, UXCampNYC, WineCamp, WoolfCamp… with more to come in the future.
And so it’s with great pleasure and honor that I get the ball going on the one-year anniversary celebration that will be called BarCampEarth. It’s scheduled to take place the weekend of August 25-27, the same weekend as the original inspiration FOO Camp and right before Burning Man. And most importantly, it takes place on every conceivable corner of the globe — wherever anyone who’s interested, motivated and inspired to participate can — and should.
Though we’ve already signed up 20 unique locales spanning the globe, we, the members of the worldwide community of BarCamps, hereby invite everyone everywhere to attend and to participate, in whatever way possible. If you can host a *camp, by all means, do so; if you want to organize a Mash Pit, a Demo Camp, and Tequp… a gathering in your local pub or library. Do so! Or, feel free to tune into the IRC chat, into the Skype channel (ask me to add you), the Google Group, or the streaming video (which Scott of BarCampSudbury is setting up).
Most of all, this is your event to make of us what you will. The BarCamp community has grown and matured in the past year and there’s a wealth of knowledge to be tapped if you’re interested in running your own event. Now’s your chance to ask questions, to seek and build your local community, to connect and to get en-fucking-gaged.
Factory Joe 
heh, couldn’t resist, I made a wallpaper! http://flickr.com/photos/jakedahn/205833601/
Keep on rockin it Chris. You’ve already got the RTP area of the Carolina’s humming but we’ll have to start something in the Queen City of Charlotte sometime soon. It’s been awesome to watch this meme grow. When can we do one in space?
Already beat ya to it.
You coming to the September bar camp London Chris? =D
Congrats!