Say Everything

Read Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It's Becoming, and Why It Matters by Scott Rosenberg.

A history of blogging to date with interpretation along the way. I have been involved with blogs, internal and outward facing in the enterprise since 2001. We initially used it to stay in touch with visitors and vendor connections for innovation centers. It worked well for that purpose. It also acted as a means for informing employees about our activity. Before that we were on the WELL and managed mailing lists.

If you have followed blogging for any length of time you know many of the stories described in his book. Sometimes Rosenberg spends too much time providing detail, like about the founding of Blogger. That was more about the story of a start-up than about blogging. I do like his exploration of sincerity vs authenticity in blogs.

I did learn much about stories that I followed for a while and then disconnected with. That's the value of a book versus a blog.

Almost nothing is said about internal blogs, or blogs mean to be used for knowledge capture. I like the thoughts about its origins, even a suggestion that Pepys was an early blogger, though there is no evidence he was writing with any audience in mind.

So overall intriguing for those with an interest in the area, though borders on the tedious for those who are not already involved. Best of all were the last several chapters that deal with blogs vs journalism and the future of blogging. They are worth reading by themselves if you don't want to know all of the history details.

Scott Rosenberg also has a well known blog: Wordyard, where as expected, he updates the book. That is the value of a blog versus a book.