Email's been here for years. But the reason Substack wants you to call your creative work by their brand name is because they control your audience and dis...

You might have noticed, it’s not a super fun time to be in the publishing industry, especially if you’re trying to do journalism. The years-long drumbeat of ba...

This week marks the 20th anniversary of this blog. I thought the best way to observe the milestone, and to try to pass along some of the benefits I’ve gained...

At a time when millions are losing trust in the the web’s biggest sites, it’s worth revisiting the idea that the web was supposed to be made out of countless l...

There’s been precious little documentation of the real cultural impact that the social web has had, particularly in its earliest years. So it’s exciting when p...

This summer marked 15 years since I first started blogging here, and I’m happier than ever that I’ve chosen to live so much of my life in this place, with all...

We don’t do nearly enough to examine what it means when we perform common actions on our social networks. These aren’t just guttural, reflexive responses! Th...

First, some disclaimers: I’m writing this as I sit a few feet away from Medium’s NYC team. (I even asked them for tech support while writing this!) Ev Williams...

Seven years ago, my wife Alaina Browne and I were living happily in San Francisco when she went off to NYC to visit with our friends and attend a party. By t...

I lament the end of the personal CMS market; I was happy to back Ghost on Kickstarter today for the same reason that I back pretty much any effort at making...

Congrats to Matt Mullenweg on ten years of blogging . I say it half-jokingly every time someone I know observes the decade anniversary of their blogging, but...

First, a bit of background: Blogger , Google’s venerable and pioneering blogging service was created in 1999 by a small team at Pyra Labs, as an offshoot of t...

At the beginning of this year, I wrote a piece called if you didn’t blog it, it didn’t happen , about how your thoughts, ideas and conversations need a place...

Hmm, lots of interesting responses to If your website’s full of assholes, it’s your fault , and even more interesting conversation about the topic of commenti...

A few months ago, I introduced a blogroll on my site , making me probably the first person in more than half a decade to get excited about a blogroll. But my...

By request , a bit of explanation of how and why I favorite things on the internet. (Or favor them. Or like them. Whatever.) First, where do I favorite? On...

It’s really gratifying to get to ruminate on things here on my blog and see echoes of those ideas the great work that other people do. Some recent bits of grat...

Great news for the web today, some of the smartest folks I know are doing what they do best: Making the web better. Take Paul Ford’s thoughts on “ Why Wasn...

Clive Thompson’s newest Wired piece argues that the flow of short-form messages as we see on Twitter and Facebook is encouraging longer meditations in other...

I love blogs. Nick Denton wrote over on Lifehacker about the pending redesign of Gawker’s blogs, with a lot of great insights into the leading edge of web pu...

Lots of nice writing out there that either replies to or references some recent posts here. Highlights: Dictatorship Versus Democracy in app store politi...

As ever, the best thing about blogging is the conversations it kicks off. Some nice responses to recent posts here and around the web: In a follow-up to...

Some great responses to, and extensions of, the things I’ve been writing about lately In response to Forking Is A Feature , Rafe Colburn offers up The cu...

I stopped working at Six Apart over a year ago. At the time, I didn’t blog about it because the departure was completely amicable and I knew I wasn’t sure what...

As I write this, the Twittersphere is going through its annual love/hate paroxysms about TED . Every year, the conference seems even more an event perfect...

I’m going to be offline for a little while (some would say that last rant of mine was a sign I should have gone offline a bit sooner) so I thought I’d leave...

I don’t believe in life insurance. When I die, I want it to be a bad day for everybody. – Brad L. Graham, February 2002 My friend Brad L. Graham died une...

Apple is justifiably revered in the worlds of technology and culture for creating one of the most powerful brands in the world based on the combination of some...

Pushbutton is a name for what I believe will be an upgrade for the web, where any site or application can deliver realtime messages to a web-scale audience,...

While I’m still hard at work at responding to all the requests that have been made, I had to take a moment to mark the tenth anniversary of this blog today....

There have been a lot of great conversations around and about some of my recent posts; Here are some highlights. My post about Google’s Microsoft Moment seem...

In two weeks, I’ll be marking the 10 year anniversary of blogging on dashes.com. I’m celebrating by making a simple request: Tell me what you’d like to see me...

When I saw Malcolm Gladwell doggedly dissecting Chris Anderson’s upcoming “ Free: The Future of a Radical Price ” (see Chris’ response here ) my first rea...

Starting last week, New York Magazine asked me to participate in a roundtable conversation with NYMag’s book critic Sam Anderson, Improv Everywhere...

Jay Smooth, “ Please stop calling everyone and their mother ‘The First Rapper’ “: U-Roy may be one of rap’s predecessors, and among the influences that lai...

FAIL is over. Fail is dead. Because it marks a lack of human empathy, and signifies an absence of intellectual curiosity, it is an unacceptable response to c...

The whole world A small number of super-geeky obsessives is abuzz over the upcoming launch of Facebook Usernames , an exciting new feature that will let you...

Worth noting: Both independent bloggers on the web and the Associated Press are in the news this week for asking for appropriate credit for their work when it’...

As always, I am trying to be everywhere at once. Here’s where I’ve succeeded: Dan Costa at PC Magazine offers a look at the rise of micro social networks...

Right now I am here, but soon I may be somewhere near you! Let’s see where I’ve been lately, and where I’m going to be: Across the internets, Choire asked a...

Last month marked the ninth anniversary of me starting this blog, more or less continuously updating since then. As I begin my tenth year here on dashes.com, I...

One of the most satisfying and fun things I’ve ever seen in my job was the sight of my friend and coworker Michael Sippey onstage with Steve Jobs and the App...

Today’s Blog of the Year Picks: Ask the Wizard and Fortuitous . Between these two blogs, there have barely been twenty posts this year. Yet either o...

Today’s Blog of the Year Picks: Some Bits: Nelson’s Weblog and RC3.org . These two are just for me, some real old-school-blogging nerd picks. Some B...

Today’s Blog of the Year Pick: Serious Eats . I love food, but I could never quite put my finger on what was wrong with the food blogs I’d tried to re...

Today’s Blog of the Year Pick: Ill Doctrine . Put simply, Jay Smooth’s Ill Doctrine is the best video blog on the web. (At least the best one that’s i...

This week, I’ll be highlighting the sites that I think stood out this year. July marked the 8th anniversary of my blog, and over these past eight and a half ye...

It looks like I wasn’t the only one having a Gawker reckoning ; A remarkable post revealed that both Emily Gould and Choire Sicha are leaving the site. (Tha...

From lolcats to goatse to the Zidane headbutt , I’ve been at least tenuously linked to some of the web’s most notable and notorious memes. Naturally, when...

From Paul Ford’s “ $5 Chocolate Bar “: Brooklyn has squandered the treasures she brought with her when she burst out of her father’s brain. She’s thinking,...

Phew! A warm welcome to my regular readers, now that I’ve had the misfortune of being visited by the worst of the rest of the web’s audience. I should have kno...

The Donors Choose Bloggers Challenge that I wrote about a few weeks ago is almost over, and that means you only have a few days to help support the Notes fo...

I added this thing to my site (the HTML version, which most of you never see) a while back, and it’s gotten some interesting responses. I’ll reproduce it here...

I’ve been doing a good bit of speaking lately, and have some more coming up, so let me share it with you if you’re interested. I was flattered to have my...

Put these in your browser, and shake well. Facebook apps are not a long tail . So says Chris Anderson, who oughtta know. The tougher question is: Since th...

I’ve had the chance to follow Gawker Media since before it launched, really, and so it’s been interesting to see a couple of items pop up recently about the di...

I’ve seen a number of people make reference to Facebook’s application platform without knowing a lot of background about some historical examples that might be...

In his post this weekend , Rex Sorgatz points out that “mainstream media is hard”. It’s a truth I know firsthand — I used to work both in the music industry a...

I’ve gotten a lot of really good questions (and some fantastically generous donations!) about the Donors Choose blogger challenge I wrote about yesterday , bu...

I’ve been a big fan of Donors Choose for some time. It’s a charity my readers may well have heard of, which helps students in public schools by letting regul...

I get a little self-conscious about the fact that I’m so earnest on my blog sometimes, since I’m kind of a smart-ass in person. But I figure I’ll never regret...

I try not to ramble on too much about my work, except for a little “I love the people I work with!” post every few months, but I did want to point out one sati...

A Brief Message seems interesting: Essays about design, in 200 words or less. Khoi explains some of the thinking , and the idea of a new design for each upd...

I’d intended to post a correction to this NY Times story’s recounting of the history of blog book tours, but was pleased to see that my friend, and intermitt...

I found Nelson Minar’s thoughtful look at Larry Craig’s arrest to be very moving because of its deeply empathetic perspective. I find one of the things that...

Mitch Wagner has a provocative, comprehensive, and entertaining look at the recent conversations about Apple and the enterprise over at InformationWeek entitle...

Rule #1 in nerd blogging: jwz said it first. If you enjoyed The Enterprise, Apple, and Insufficient Ambition last week, you’ll want to read Jamie Zawinski...

I’ve found some nice responses to conversations I’ve had recently that are probably worth checking out. First, and most importantly, Soundwave: The Touch ,...

I try to keep my social network as open as possible. Here’s the thing — I’m not talking about web applications that mimic real-world behaviors. I mean the rea...

Before I crash for the night, I’d be remiss if I didn’t congratulate my incredibly talented and passionate coworkers and thank our unbelievable community....

The Premise: Anyone who creates technologies that aspire to have significant cultural or social impacts on the developed world has to focus on both our lives...

I moved back to New York City at the end of last year because of my wife’s work , and despite my love for my coworkers and the work they do. But the decisio...

Daniel Lyons, author of the heretofore-anonymous Fake Steve Jobs blog, which comments extensively on companies in the technology industry, was also the author...

Since everyone’s sending it to me, I’ll post the prescient Onion video from last week. The highlight, for me, is two minutes into the clip. Breaking News: A...

Dunstan Orchard is a really nice, talented (and attractive!) man who is a terrific designer. But he has no sense of taste . Discuss....

Two of the posts I’m most proud of having written last year are Making Something Meaningful and How do we judge our tools? . It looks like the sentiment beh...

Pentagram, the designers of the website, signage, marketing materials, and stationery for the new New York Times building , have a fascinating blog post...

Reflecting on toread is tobehuman : Dave Coustan says , “I use [this is good] to mark things I find particularly excellent.” Me too. Heh. And Ed Kohle...

John Scalzi shares a gem and kicks off a predictably stupid comment thread, based on an overheard coversation: “The problem with using the Web as a model for...

Andre Torrez : “My little experiment in tossing links out of the main blog didn’t work out so hot. I like linking things, but I don’t like the lazy feeling...

I was very flattered and a little bit surprised to be interviewed by Claire Zulkey for her site. I’m a fair bit geekier than most of her regular interviewees...

Back in 2001, I got laid off from a job right around the same time as Sam Brown, the creator of Exploding Dog . Over the course of that year, as I looked for...

Corey Spring has broken the details of a story that no one in traditional journalism had figured out yet. Wrestler Chris Benoit’s murder-suicide seemed to ha...

There’s no better link-bait than science fiction where you’re one of the characters. See Kevin Fanning’s “ How Everything Turned Out ” in The Morning News. O...

There’s been a (mostly boring) conversation going between some blogs over the past few days regarding the line between editorial and advertising. Largely, this...

The gist: A lighthearted unscientific poll that was created as a PR ploy for a tech company is quickly evolving into a “real” news story, being treated as fa...

When Matt Haughey first described his new site Fortuitous , which just launched two weeks ago, I was particularly excited because this is a new blog tha...

Following up on the conversation about accountability, january one discusses the dark side of blogging from the perspective of the knitting blog community....

Five years ago, I got my first death threat for something I wrote on my blog. The same week, some of those readers called my boss and tried to get me fired. A...

Are you in New York for the PodCamp NYC conference ? Well, I’ll be there representing Six Apart and if you’re podcasting with Movable Type, TypePad, LiveJourn...

A little while ago, my friend Michael Sippey, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing the other day , sent me a link to the new Google Voice Local Search ....

A couple of months ago, I got to talk to Lynne about business blogging for Fast Company’s podcasts series . I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, though...

One of the reasons I admire my friend Mena is that she is remarkably prescient. I think it’s worth revisiting these posts that she wrote a year and a half ago....

I’ve found some interesting articles around the web recently that mention me or my blog, and while I don’t try to be comprehensive in linking to everything tha...

The exact thing you are looking for is out there on the Internet, if you just know where to look. So here are some hints. Making the connection between Gi...

It’s not the funniest joke in the world, but I’m very proud to have a tradition on my blog that is in its 8th annual incarnation, so here goes again: It’s the...

I would just like to say thank you to all of you for supporting my site for almost 8 years now. This is an unbelievable honor....

When I first heard that Kevin Shay was working on a novel, it struck me as a little bit unfair. I know Kevin from his work with Movable Type ; as we said o...

I was very flattered last week that GeekSugar post an interview with me and my wife Alaina that they did a few weeks ago. It’s strange enough to be asked to...

A few months ago, I spent a lot of time trying to show the tech community I belong to that diversity is essential to our survival . Not just to the Web 2.0 wo...

This weekend, I’m making my first trip to Vancouver (and my first trip to Canada in over 3 years) to speak at the Northern Voice 2007 blogging conference. I’...

Sure, Microsoft Word is fine for kids who want to write papers for school, but serious professionals should be very worried about using this dangerous tool!...

I hate the abbreviation “MSM”. It’s almost always used by those who are lacking in perspective. We’re all either too lazy to actually differentiate between the...

I’m surprised how much I’m enjoying the conversation inspired by Marshall Kirkpatrick’s TechCrunch post about tech companies hiring well-known bloggers to he...

A couple Clay Shirky links for you today, one of which I just linked to, one of which I should have linked to last week, and all worth reading. In D...

How could I still give a damn about blogs, about the web, after all day, every day for eight years or so? Well, how could I not ? Let me show you what it look...

Last night, I had the chance to attend the WNBC New York City Bloggers’ Summit . I’ve got a lot of different opinions on the event, some positive and some mor...

Here are the things to look at on the Internet today. India’s President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, asks Yahoo Answers, “ What should we do to free our planet fr...

Last time, a rumination on video quality. Today, a look at [Ze Frank going Hollywood]( http://www.observer.com/printpage.asp?iid=14010&ic=The Transom &quo...

One of my favorite parts of my job is getting to write posts for some of our dozens of company-run blogs. I’m particularly pleased with two that went up today:...

Every four to six months, Stewart Butterfield updates his website, whether the Internet is ready or not. This time, Sylloge ruminates on John Adams’ thoughts...

There’s a fascinating conversation taking place across a couple of blogs, which Steven’s post on leaving Brooklyn alterted me to. Douglas Rushkoff was mugge...

It’s almost like all I do is talk about blogging all day. Debbie Weil hosts the Corporate Blogging show on VoiceAmerica’s business channel, and the other day w...

Andy Plesser of Beet.TV stopped by our offices at Six Apart a few weeks ago, and I had the chance to talk to him for a few minutes. Andy recorded the conversat...

Jason describes the blog commentor’s gaze , a rumination on how people who act unreasonably on the web fit some parts of the scientific definition of a psyc...

A few days ago, I foolishly described a table of my blog archives as my favorite view of my blog . As with all posts that I only spend 30 seconds writing, it...

From the New York Times story about Stallone’s new Rocky Balboa , Peter Sealey, who is a former film exec-turned-marketing prof a UC Berkeley, offers: I...

One of the great things about having been a blogger for a long time is that I can present my old posts in interesting ways. I’ve been experimenting with a big...

Rex has compiled a fantastic list of the Best Blogs of 2006 that You (Maybe) Aren’t Reading . I’m flattered to be mentioned as a see-also suggestion, but most...

Those who know me well know that I never really loved being in a classroom while I was in school; The whole experience, combined with my own lack of discipline...

One of the most common questions I get from people who know about Six Apart is “What the hell do you actually do there?” These days, that question’s easier...

Update: The fellow who asked the question actually doesn’t want to participate in the lawsuit against Cohen. Wonders never cease! On Ask MetaFilter a m...

I’d mentioned that talking to regular people about the potential of blogging is one of my favorite parts of my job, and that’s probably reason enough to paus...

There are lots of different corners of the web, most of which have the good graces to be supportive and interesting and to act like, well, a community . Peopl...

I launched a new design for my blog about two weeks ago, but I’d been waiting until I had a chance to shake out a few of the more egregious bugs to mention the...

Just a little geek note, there’s now a box that will appear the first time you visit my site (it disappears after the first visit) that will let you subscribe...

Mr. Henninger, I had the good fortune to review your column , in which you express, at length and in some detail, your extreme distaste for people publish...

I guess the beginning of a new year is when you’re supposed to look back and be reflective. Looking at my weblog, the thing that’s most striking to me is that,...

Just wanted to leave myself a placeholder about the exceptional Gel Conference I attended today. Haven’t had a chance to write up my notes yet, (I’m so used...

So, yeah, everybody’s gonna be buzzing about Google buying Pyra , but my take is that it’s not really that great a fit. Of course, Google bought Deja, which...

So, after we’ve all graduated to using microcontent clients to navigate through websites, people whose weblogs are primarily read through their RSS feeds are...

Since I’ve already started to get a good number of people emailing and asking questions in regards to the Media Matters segment on weblogs, I thought I shoul...

It may not be too late for TiVo to learn a lesson from Segway ‘s success in lobbying legislators through the use of technology that’s compelling enough to sel...

So, I’m gonna be on this TV show in a week or so. (It’s on PBS, so air times vary, you’d have to click the "check local listings" to find out when...

I mentioned earlier that the best way to protect your privacy is to control your identity . But, while proactive publishing of one’s identity is a necessary s...

Another benefit you accrue by publishing your creations with more open licenses like the ones at Creative Commons is that when you get unanticipated surges...

Microcontent is information published in short form, with its length dictated by the constraint of a single main topic and by the physical and technical limita...

Picture the following scenario: Microsoft has created a weblog tool that is designed to run inside the firewall at a company. It’s browser-accessible from any...