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...

The Barnes & Noble Review

Queen Victoria Would Not Have Been Amused. We Live In A Confessional Age In Which Authenticity Demands Saying Everything About Oneself. From Politicians To Celebrities To Ordinary People, Mainstream Culture Is Increasingly Self-revelatory. Reality Television, Call-in Radio, And Millions Of Self-published Personal Electronic Diaries Known As Blogs, Have Become The Most Popular Vehicles Of This Confessional Culture. Why Is This? In say Everything Scott Rosenberg Quotes Nick Denton, The Founder Of The New York City–based Blog Gawker Who, In Explaining The Value Of 9/11 Blogs Said, Only Through The Human Stories Of Escape Or Loss Have I Really Felt The Disaster. The Point Of Media, Denton Implies, Is To Feel Rather Than Explain. The Old Industrial Model Of Professional Journalists Handing Down Coldly Objective Information Is Being Shoved Aside By A Hyper-democratic Experiential Model In Which Everyone Publishes Their Feelings About Everything. And The Most Experiential Of All Modern Media Confessionals Is The Internet Blog -- Of Which There Were 64 Million In 2008. Rosenberg, A Cofounder Of The Internet Magazine salon, Really Does Say Almost Everything (even A Little Too Much) About The Blogging Revolution. With Patience And Not A Little Love, Rosenberg Introduces Us To The Crazy Panoply Of Blogging Founding Fathers: Virulent Anti-semite John Barger, A Brilliant Yet Prickly Software Programmer With A Socratic Obsession About Truth Called Dave Winer, And The First Blogger, Justin Hall, Who, In Celebrating The New Year In 2005, Blogged: I Really Enjoy Urinating. But Blogs Aren't Just The Refuge Of The Mentally Ill. Over The Last Ten Years, More And More Writers Have Embraced The Blog: Rosenberg Explains That In Everything From Politics To Sex To Mommy Blogs, The Experiential Self-published Internet Diary Has Gone Mainstream, Turning Blogging's Great Outpouring Of Human Expression Into The Future Of All Media. Rosenberg Criticizes Mogul Barry Diller For Suggesting That Talent Remains The One Scarcity In Today's Media. But This Book Is A Glitteringly Subversive Argument Against Rosenberg's Own Thesis. It's A Beautifully Written And Meticulously Fair Narrative About The Past, Present, And Future Of The Blog. Only Somebody With Rosenberg's Incomparable Ability Could Have Written Say Everything. We Are Lucky To Have His Unique Talent. --andrew Keen