It’s been over 20 years since I was last inside Claridge’s Hotel in London, so a visit there yesterday morning provoked a little bit of nostalgia.

Claridge’s was the venue for a gathering of “influential members of the UK ‘blogerati’ from the realms of politics, media and public relations” – to quote the description by organizers Edelman – to hear presentations from Edelman and Technorati on the broad theme of ‘The Global Conversation Imperative.’

To many in the audience of about 60, much of the data and stats about blogosphere growth included in the main presentation would have been familiar, based as it was on information published by Technorati’s Dave Sifry in August.

The really interesting parts, though, were new data reflecting some fruits from the tie-up between Edelman and Technorati that, among other things, gives Edelman the means to gain invaluable insight into blogs and influential bloggers in local markets as well as blog search tools in multiple languages.

Such tools are exclusive to Edelman for now but will make their way into general availability via Technorati in due course.

The Financial Times reports on yesterday’s get-together with a concise summary of this local-markets aspect of the presentation:

Readership of blogs in Europe is catching up with the US, but the most popular blogs are still dominated by Americans, according to new research which compares bloggers of different nationalities. However blogs are becoming an increasingly important part of political life in both Europe and the US, with more than a quarter of readers of the websites spurred to political or civic action.

For detailed information, see David Brain’s commentary.

Such data and interpretations are extremely useful, and add to other recent research on the blogosphere which increment the credibility of what you talk to organizations about regarding social media.

The FT is continuing the conversation with ‘Ask the expert: PR and blogs’, an online Q&A with Richard Edelman at 2pm GMT today. The key questions – Does the public relations industry understand blogs? Are the two even compatible?

One big highlight for me of yesterday’s event was meeting some bloggers who I’ve known for quite a while through reading their content via RSS but I’ve never physically met until now – Richard Edelman, Mike Krempasky, Antony Mayfield and Jackie Danicki. Terrific! Plus seeing again David Brain, Hugh MacLeod, Stephen Davies and Suw Charman. Also Stuart Smith, Edelman UK’s CEO, who has now started blogging.

Some of those I’ve linked to have also posted about yesterday’s event.

Definitely a worthwhile trip to London. Thanks, Edelman and Technorati.