July 2003: The Turning-Point of Blogging

Posted at 10:44 am on Wednesday, June 14, 2006, in Uncategorized.

I read an article somewhere lambasting bloggers’ supposed self-importance. Maybe he had a point…

There have been blogs about history and even blogs about blogging, but now, please welcome, a blog about the history of blogging. And what role does this blog have in the storied history of blogging? The answer, amazingly enough, is “plenty.”

The New York Magazine published a brief timelime of the history of blogging earlier this year, and although this blog is not distinctly mentioned, it is what you get when you read between the lines, or as we say in the business, “infer,” that tells the bigger story. Now, in the engineering world, when forecasting unknowns (or in the world of earthquake engineering, “backcasting” knowns), we rely on one of two methods, extrapolation and interpolation, but never both. And the latter is much more difficult to ascertain, even though it seemingly would be easier, figuring on one hand, you have A and C, and you want B, and on the other, you have A and B and you want C. (We can discuss this further at a later time.) I continue…

The New York Magazine notes that blogging unofficially commenced in January 1994, which happens to be only five months after my parents purchased a Macintosh LCIII for the family. (Coincidence?) The piece then goes on to note that Google (heard of them?) launched AsSense in June 2003, and two months later in August, “the first avalanche of ads on political blogs” appeared. Hmm… June and August 2003. What happened between then in, say, July? That’s right, you know your blog history, the introduction of this blog (under its original name) is what happened. Dare I conclude, infer or interpolate that this blog made a small difference?

And lastly, the magazine reports that the once-famed Wonkette blog started in January 2004, half-a-year after I started reyonthehill (or, reycorp blog, as I originally called this thing). Who was your influence, Ms. Cox? Now, I hold this point even more dearly to my heart than the crucial role this blog had on the advent of political blogging and its rise in the mainstream. When I first started blogging, I thought to myself, “Don’t worry about the fame, don’t worry about the money, it won’t come anyway. You have staying power, Jeff. And that is the name of the game.” And as I blog well into the thirty-sixth month, I realize it’s all for a book deal anyway.

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