Dan Gillmor is just opened up the Citizen's Media session at BlogNashville, and we just had a laugh about how people used to say that "using a computer would be as easy as using the telephone." Of course, then he pulled out his PDAphone, saying "Uh oh, this isn't what I was expecting!"

To get the room thinking, he's "asking" a lot of questions to the group, such as how a citizen's media world would work financially, defamation problems, whether enough people would ultimately read the websites, etc.

Evan Erwin from Mister Orange just told a story about a post he put up about a car lot that he had some problems with on his blog, and the lot's ownership got a bit upset when he became very relevant in the Google Juice and threatened to sue him. He says that he's received numerous letters from the company, but no lawsuit, after a few months. Some concern from a few other people in the room about the possibility of defamation suits and the like becoming a big deal.

[11:03] Lots of talk about libel and such...

[11:06] Terry Heaton suggests that while we're all discussing how citizen's media is going to "conform" to how today's media is, this is probably not how we should be looking at how it's growing.

[11:12] Someone who works in the music business takes issue with how copyright laws are said to be "Draconian," and that it is illegal to be posting other people's music, etc.

[11:18] Dan Gillmor: "A world full of stringers..."

[11:20] Linda Seebach of the Rocky Mountain News introduces YourHub.com, a site that the News and the Denver Post have recently launched to allow folks in the Denver area to blog at will about anything and everything.

FYI: Tom @ Scared Monkeys is also liveblogging this session.

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