Salon co-founder Rosenberg (Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software, 2007) offers an elegantly accessible history and defense of a now-ubiquitous Internet phenomenon-the blogosphere. In 2003 there were 100,000 blogs worldwide; today there are approximately 184 million. Such phenomenal growth of blogging, which the author defines as "a hybrid of traditional publishing and casual electronic messaging," was initially due to adventurous, and at times decidedly odd, men and women who both saw the potential in the totally free expression blogging allows and developed the software that made it simple and easy. Rosenberg energetically chronicles these '90s pioneers, including Justin Hall, who obsessively posted a real-time archive of his life in the early '90s; Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan, who developed a simple program-subsequently sold to Google-that made blogging accessible to anyone (Williams would later develop Twitter); Robert Scoble and others, who showed, for better or worse, that blogging could be profitable; and Josh Marshall, who made blogging a true journalistic endeavor. As more people have discovered the joys of blogging, what has been created, Rosenberg claims, is nothing less than "a new kind of public sphere, at once ephemeral and timeless, sharing the characteristics of conversation and deliberation." Blogging allows for new possibilities in form and content and the blossoming of new talent; it's also fun. Yet Rosenberg also acknowledges the critiques of such an unbridled flood of verbiage. With patient detail-and for the most part jargon-free language-he addresses the concern that the blogosphere is nothingmore than a mindless morass of trivia-that it may be creating an "echo chamber effect" where we talk to only those who agree with us, and may lead to cultural disintegration as millions of monologues replace a common discourse. Though he never dismisses them out of hand, the author concludes that these complaints are mostly baseless or overwrought. Rosenberg suggests that blogging's "outpouring of human expression" should "delight us." This fair and fascinating account should delight as well. Author events out of San Francisco and Seattle
Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters
Blogs are everywhere. They have exposed truths and spread rumors. Made and lost fortunes. Brought couples together and torn them apart. Toppled cabinet members and sparked grassroots movements. Immediate, intimate, and influential, they have put the power of personal publishing into everyone's hands. Regularly dismissed as trivial and ephemeral, they have proved that they are here to stay.
In Say Everything, Scott Rosenberg chronicles blogging's unplanned rise and improbable triumph, tracing its impact on politics, business, the media, and our personal lives. He offers close-ups of innovators such as Blogger founder Evan Williams, investigative journalist Josh Marshall, exhibitionist diarist Justin Hall, software visionary Dave Winer, "mommyblogger" Heather Armstrong, and many others.
These blogging pioneers were the first to face new dilemmas that have become common in the era of Google and Facebook, and their stories offer vital insights and warnings as we navigate the future. How much of our lives should we reveal on the Web? Is anonymity a boon or a curse? Which voices can we trust? What does authenticity look like on a stage where millions are fighting for attention, yet most only write for a handful? And what happens to our culture now that everyone can say everything?
Before blogs, it was easy to believe that the Web would grow up to be a clickable TV-slick, passive, mass-market. Instead, blogging brought the Web's native character into focus-convivial, expressive, democratic. Far from being pajama-clad loners, bloggers have become the curators of our collective experience, testing out their ideas in front of a crowd and linking people in ways that broadcasts can't match. Blogs have created a new kind of public sphere-one in which we can think out loud together. And now that we have begun, Rosenberg writes, it is impossible to imagine us stopping.
In his first book, Dreaming in Code, Scott Rosenberg brilliantly explored the art of creating software ("the first true successor to The Soul of a New Machine," wrote James Fallows in The Atlantic). In Say Everything, Rosenberg brings the same perceptive eye to the blogosphere, capturing as no one else has the birth of a new medium.
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In Say Everything, Scott Rosenberg chronicles blogging's unplanned rise and improbable triumph, tracing its impact on politics, business, the media, and our personal lives. He offers close-ups of innovators such as Blogger founder Evan Williams, investigative journalist Josh Marshall, exhibitionist diarist Justin Hall, software visionary Dave Winer, "mommyblogger" Heather Armstrong, and many others.
These blogging pioneers were the first to face new dilemmas that have become common in the era of Google and Facebook, and their stories offer vital insights and warnings as we navigate the future. How much of our lives should we reveal on the Web? Is anonymity a boon or a curse? Which voices can we trust? What does authenticity look like on a stage where millions are fighting for attention, yet most only write for a handful? And what happens to our culture now that everyone can say everything?
Before blogs, it was easy to believe that the Web would grow up to be a clickable TV-slick, passive, mass-market. Instead, blogging brought the Web's native character into focus-convivial, expressive, democratic. Far from being pajama-clad loners, bloggers have become the curators of our collective experience, testing out their ideas in front of a crowd and linking people in ways that broadcasts can't match. Blogs have created a new kind of public sphere-one in which we can think out loud together. And now that we have begun, Rosenberg writes, it is impossible to imagine us stopping.
In his first book, Dreaming in Code, Scott Rosenberg brilliantly explored the art of creating software ("the first true successor to The Soul of a New Machine," wrote James Fallows in The Atlantic). In Say Everything, Rosenberg brings the same perceptive eye to the blogosphere, capturing as no one else has the birth of a new medium.
Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters
Blogs are everywhere. They have exposed truths and spread rumors. Made and lost fortunes. Brought couples together and torn them apart. Toppled cabinet members and sparked grassroots movements. Immediate, intimate, and influential, they have put the power of personal publishing into everyone's hands. Regularly dismissed as trivial and ephemeral, they have proved that they are here to stay.
In Say Everything, Scott Rosenberg chronicles blogging's unplanned rise and improbable triumph, tracing its impact on politics, business, the media, and our personal lives. He offers close-ups of innovators such as Blogger founder Evan Williams, investigative journalist Josh Marshall, exhibitionist diarist Justin Hall, software visionary Dave Winer, "mommyblogger" Heather Armstrong, and many others.
These blogging pioneers were the first to face new dilemmas that have become common in the era of Google and Facebook, and their stories offer vital insights and warnings as we navigate the future. How much of our lives should we reveal on the Web? Is anonymity a boon or a curse? Which voices can we trust? What does authenticity look like on a stage where millions are fighting for attention, yet most only write for a handful? And what happens to our culture now that everyone can say everything?
Before blogs, it was easy to believe that the Web would grow up to be a clickable TV-slick, passive, mass-market. Instead, blogging brought the Web's native character into focus-convivial, expressive, democratic. Far from being pajama-clad loners, bloggers have become the curators of our collective experience, testing out their ideas in front of a crowd and linking people in ways that broadcasts can't match. Blogs have created a new kind of public sphere-one in which we can think out loud together. And now that we have begun, Rosenberg writes, it is impossible to imagine us stopping.
In his first book, Dreaming in Code, Scott Rosenberg brilliantly explored the art of creating software ("the first true successor to The Soul of a New Machine," wrote James Fallows in The Atlantic). In Say Everything, Rosenberg brings the same perceptive eye to the blogosphere, capturing as no one else has the birth of a new medium.
In Say Everything, Scott Rosenberg chronicles blogging's unplanned rise and improbable triumph, tracing its impact on politics, business, the media, and our personal lives. He offers close-ups of innovators such as Blogger founder Evan Williams, investigative journalist Josh Marshall, exhibitionist diarist Justin Hall, software visionary Dave Winer, "mommyblogger" Heather Armstrong, and many others.
These blogging pioneers were the first to face new dilemmas that have become common in the era of Google and Facebook, and their stories offer vital insights and warnings as we navigate the future. How much of our lives should we reveal on the Web? Is anonymity a boon or a curse? Which voices can we trust? What does authenticity look like on a stage where millions are fighting for attention, yet most only write for a handful? And what happens to our culture now that everyone can say everything?
Before blogs, it was easy to believe that the Web would grow up to be a clickable TV-slick, passive, mass-market. Instead, blogging brought the Web's native character into focus-convivial, expressive, democratic. Far from being pajama-clad loners, bloggers have become the curators of our collective experience, testing out their ideas in front of a crowd and linking people in ways that broadcasts can't match. Blogs have created a new kind of public sphere-one in which we can think out loud together. And now that we have begun, Rosenberg writes, it is impossible to imagine us stopping.
In his first book, Dreaming in Code, Scott Rosenberg brilliantly explored the art of creating software ("the first true successor to The Soul of a New Machine," wrote James Fallows in The Atlantic). In Say Everything, Rosenberg brings the same perceptive eye to the blogosphere, capturing as no one else has the birth of a new medium.
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Product Details
BN ID: | 2940172193422 |
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Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
Publication date: | 07/07/2009 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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