Purchase
How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters
Crown
July 2009
On Sale: July 7, 2009
416 pages ISBN: 0307451364 EAN: 9780307451361 Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
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.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|