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Live, from PopTech — well, not quite. A few days ago, organizers from PopTech 2006, the multimedia futurist conference that started last night, told press-pass-carrying journalists:

The conference this year is completely sold out...press will be asked to cover the event from the Pop!Tech Screening Room...The room is right around the corner from the main conference room and is specially furnished with Steelcase furniture and HP Plasma Screens. Best of all, you can snack in the Screening Room.

"Around the corner" means out the door, down the sidewalk and around the corner - exiled press doesn't get to go in the same door with the $2500-ticket attendees. Then they watch a high-def version of a live stream available to anyone on the Net.

But oh boy, snacks!

So which bloggers ponied up the cash and which took press-pass second class? PC Magazine's Gearlog is in the screening room, writing, "It took me most of a day to get up here from New York, but you can watch it from the comfort of your cubicle." Cheeky blogger Robert Scoble says, "I'm so jealous I'm not at PopTech." Meanwhile, blogger Jason Kottke says he's in the audience.

So why did PopTech bother inviting journalists at all? No editor wants to send his reporters to Maine just to watch a conference on TV, and isn't it cooler just to let the attendees blog it?