This week: Scott Rosenberg, Salon co-cofounder, and the man who first got the ball rolling on Open Salon before leaving in 2007 to write his new, great book, "Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters," (Crown).
I'm publishing this now without a transcript because I want to get it up -- I'll add the transcript as soon as I get a chance.
Scott Rosenberg
caitlin shamberg
Thomas Rogers
Rebecca Traister
Lexus HS 250h
Shell
Salon.com
Comments
How sucessful is that??
I love this site and love the reading and writing.
OS is a mighty fine site.
And I will, just as soon as I finish my next post about Sarah Palin and pitbulls.
… and filled with some very talented contributors.
- rated
Thanks for letting us hear Scott's thoughts.
Good choice Kerry!
Glad to see that some people just want to be good bloggers, they may not want a book or movie deal.
Interesting interview.
I know you're busy. Can you get someone to help?
Good discussions of important from both sides. Keep up the good work.
Next time I skype for video: I'm takin' off the glasses!
And: definitely not a birther...
For some reason your OS vids won't play on my puter. Looking forward to transcript.
The only thing I can compare the OS community to are the commenters and bloggers from my ex-newspaper's web site. The difference is huge. Here, I find a welcoming, supportive group of people. At the paper, things were such a messy, disrespectful snarl that many good people wouldn't take part. That's a sad commentary for such an immediate and efficient means of communication. I don't know whether the publishing platform or the people drawn to it makes the difference, but I give thanks for OS every day.
I like it here.
Daddy?
Beth is on *fire* today ;-)
And for that OS has been a great help to me.
Although, getting divorced, that chump change is looking mighty attractive again.
But, yeah, blogging is more for the art form, I think.
(silence commences)
There's nothing like this anywhere, and I'll venture to say there's been nothing like this before.
Don't know where we are going. But thus far, a helluva ride.
Can't wait to see what's in store. THANK YOU!
what will happen in the future, well just like Twitter and social networking this here is the hay-day. It's all downhill from here my friends. But if we all stick around, keep it real and try not to bore each other with our daily posts of "I'm leaving OS, this time for good!" then this whole effort of the internet just might survive.
Bombastic
Communal
Diverse
Entertaining
Funny
Germane
Haughty
Informational
Joyful
Karmic
Laconic
Maudlin
Nostalgic
Open
Political
Quirky
Risqué
Safe
Trivial
Unique
Visual
Whimsical
X – Factor
Youthful
Zen
OS has it covered!
I echo what so many have said here. This is a unique community. Where else could a pink-haired doll gain beloved cult status.
Nicely done Scott. Really!
respectfully, to comment? Or, to not comment? I love he notion of Comment. Homer loved Comments. Homer compiled various ones.
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I'll wait for the transcript to be saying anything that real chats serious? I am not sure?
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Scott reminds me of a turkey farmer? huh? He was Wild Scott Will.
When he was spreading turkey dung? huh? He looked back to look.
A dung spreader that was splattering? huh? He gets dung on a chins.
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The moral to the story is no look back! why? Scott got turkey poops.
What the s*its that supposed to mean? huh? He get`de dirty office.
Readers need to find the Free maiden! yeas! Some clean up person.
Someone with vested interest. Fair. Ah! One non-retrograde, rude, detrimental, fissiparous, and avoid the supra-mundane. Avoid the clique mentality. Find someone who advances communal dialogue, and aims to blend solidarity. Common constitutional structure to cement social progressions, not thwart various public sentiments. Focus on education, diversity, and utilize the technological gadget techniques to enhance swifter and sensible/sustainable thoughts.
A poor maiden with Scott bathroom Tissue to wipe turkey dung off the chin. heehaw. By the way, a no copyright anything that I may feebly TRY and aim to convey. No thought comes from a mop, or a straw whisk broom. People inspire me. I vow to never sue anyone without their written permission.
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I am never sure. I'm still naive. A blogosphere newbie. And to belong to this rapidly emerging technological age? Often I am dizzy! Sober minded. It to share a treadmill at the SPA with a puppy dog chihuahua? Huh? I admit I dearly love learning @ Open Salon. I do yearn to hear some blogger/commenters Voice. Tone. Eyes Smiles. Facial Features. Grimace. pauses. Mundane? Mundane is essential.
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Mundane is to belong to this world that is far from perfect. No one should assume this world will ever be perfect/ideal. That's verily ... Completely Impossible. A world with all us lovable and imperfect humans will always be far from ideal. None are perfect. None get the final word, chuckle,
or,
Lasting Immortal Award.
One can experience small mini-"miracles" and sometimes we/me can experience What I call a daily/plain/simple ordinary, old fashion epiphanies. From?
From a Beginning of Time.
Words are all we got, grunt.
I gleaned that Mundane notion from the Professor of Psychiatry at S.U.N.Y.. Medical Center. Ronald Pies wrote that about Mundane.
(I'd love to have a avatar of a blueberry, apple, pumpkin pie?) Mr. Pies is in upstate New York. Mr Pie is writing about Robert H. Deluty's new book:` I forgot the exact Robert H. Deluty title. It's something about MUNDANE. It's a positive concept. Mr Ronald Pies wrote:`Creeping Thyme & Everything Has Two Handles. The Stoics Guide To The Art Of Living.
So, nothing is perfect, ideal, and Life here on Earth will never be heavenly, as long as One gets lured into this unsustainable economic system. Agree? I sure do.
P.S. I thought I'd be silent.
Others are more informed.
But, this banter is expressed.
The Salon You Tube is 3/4 done.
A Twitter was discussed. etc., Oy.
I wish Ya could hear a bird tweet.
For one week a bird sound so sad.
The bird outside tweets and tweet.
Maybe warbler tweet:` clean room?
Unlike almost every other blog community the noise-to-humanity ratio here is very low.
The abundance of just plain good writers on OS means everything to those of us who Must Write. It translates into writerly support that is penetrating and invaluable.
Support for good writing does not require fixing each other's syntax or critiques of structure and technique. We are Grownups here, so we quietly assume each is tending our technical aspects garden.
What matters here is Voice, and truth, truth with the stubborn small "t". Hard to find. The relative abundance here is testament to main Salon itself, it's willingness to question doctrinaire assumptions, it's healthy self-doubt. Salon's series on religion, balance on politics, celebration of culture (yet keeps the celebcult madness in check), sense of humor, all express a skeptical joy in life that attracts the quality of human beings, who are also writers, here on Open Salon.
Your presence is low-key, slightly disengaged, but closely attuned (your "eye" avatar is the ONLY one that is correctly used as such, IMHO) -- a smart public persona in a place like this. I feel comfortable here, under your stewardship.
Joan is irreplaceable because of her humanity. I can't think of another like her. US Editors have historically been larger than life egos, but Joan's humanity, healthy self-doubt, abundant smarts, and scrapper's energy is unique. And she writes like a sailor's steady breeze. This matters a lot, to all of us on OS. I cannot imagine OS without her.
(at this point I cannot the the US of A without her)
And OS is luckyluckylucky. Such diverse and entertaining and challenging writers have come here and found a home. While I worry about the vicious stuff (inevitable i guess. sigh.) and the Campaigner types of right AND left, so far they do no more that remind us that this is, after all, the internets.
But the diversity of writers you nurture here feels just right: as if you don't bother to pretend you have the online community idea all sorted out, that you celebrate evolution and self-direction, tremulous tho it might be.
I suspect this is simply how it must be, that the internet ever-evolves, and to try to FIX it in place is a fool's errand.
And OS is no fool. Foolish, at times, in its parts, but true enough, and humane, and damn smart, and hilarious, and sparkling with Real Minds and Open Hearts. I LOVE OS, all of it and all of you.
Gush almighty.
Hmm...nope. Don't want to change a word.
I have been really pleased with how much response I've had from my modest presence here. I was recommended to try OS by Celia Hayes by the way. She writes fab & very insightful stuff! If you look in my favorites box, you'll see her blog link there.
KL: We’re here with Scott Rosenberg, Salon founder, Open Salon…ah..em..ah…creator, and author of the book, “Say Everything.” Scott welcome, thanks for coming on.
So Open Salon was originally your idea, you even came up with the name. You left to write this book when Open was still sort of on the drawing boards. How do you think it turned out? You’ve written this book on the future of blogging. How does Open look from your perspective? How has it turned out?
SR: It looks fabulous, I mean in a weird way it’s sort of a living demonstration of the thesis of the book, because one of the main arguments in “Say Everything” is a case for the value of the expression that bloggers do for themselves. In other words, so much of the coverage of the focus on blogging has been about “Blogs As a Path to Fame and Fortune,” and you know, “How To Use Your Blog to Become Independently Wealthy,” and all that kind of junk. My experience and belief has been …that most value personally, a blog is a personal tool for expression that is kind of unique in history, and the thing about Open Salon is it is such a kind of, it feels to me looking at it from a relative distance now, it’s almost like a kind of model community, a place that just gives people this freedom and a certain amount of community that supports that freedom.
KL: I can’t remember if I read this in the book or one of your interviews about how Twitter has eliminated the need for this kind of a micro-blog, this sort of, you know really sort of incidental short blog post and may well refine the idea of blogging into more of a pure writing form. Can you talk a little bit about that? I thought that was really interesting.
SR: Yeah, sure. In the history of media what we see is when a new medium comes along, or a new tool comes along, it doesn’t kill off what preceded it, but it does redefine what preceded it. So in this case if you go back to the earliest days of blogging you’ll see that there was always this sort of divergence between bloggers that liked to put full essays almost on their blogs and others that preferred to put really short, almost Tweet-like posts. And actually if you go back to the first days of Blogger, where Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan were building their blogger tool, you’ll find that their blogging was actually very Twitter-like, short messages, occasional links, pointers, status updates, and it’s kind of this full circle that Evan Williams has gone on since he is the founder of Twitter—eh, CEO, one of the co-founders – that in a way he is returning to the original style of blogging that suited him I think, or that he thought most congenial. And in the meantime it frees the rest of us that might log much more of an essay kind of a blog, that’s how I’ve always kind of enjoyed it, and it means that we have a better tool for the short things. I use Twitter, and I love it. It’s great for what it’s great for, and it frees my blog. I don’t have to face this question every time “is this thing, this little thing that I want to communicate, is it too small for a post?”
KL: What is your single most satisfying experience as a blogger?
SR: I mean satisfying is maybe not the right word, but the moment I remember best is shortly before the invasion of Iraq. At a time when, ah, this was Spring of ’03, a time when pretty much everyone had accepted that this was A, inevitable, and B, the right thing. There were very few voices out there, and the few voices that were critical and questioning were I found among other bloggers, I posted a post that just raised some questions, that said that this is a really iffy thing to do and we may well regret it. And the fact that A, I had the opportunity to say that, B, I can look back and find that moment and say wait a minute this is there, it’s dated, it’s like someone – you know, as the story changed in Iraq and people, more and more people began to question it, it’s not a matter of being able to say oh I told you so, it’s a matter of demonstrating that there were actually voices, mine and many others in the blogosphere, who were there at that moment saying wait a minute.
KL: Finally, isn’t Freaky Troll the dreamiest?
SR: Oh, yes, yes indeed.
KL: Stay away from her, she’s mine mine mine.
SR: Not if I get to her first!
[scuffle off cam]