September 18, 2008

Stewart Brand Invented the Blogosphere

wholeearthhader.jpg
Kevin Kelly:

For this new countercultural movement, information was a precious commodity. In the ’60s, there was no Internet; no 500 cable channels. Bookstores were usually small and bad; libraries, worse. The Whole Earth Catalog not only gave you permission to invent your life, it gave you the reasoning and the tools to do just that. And you believed you could do it, because on every page of the catalog were other people doing it. This was a great example of user-generated content, without advertising, before the Internet. Basically, Brand invented the blogosphere long before there was any such thing as a blog." -The Whole Earth Blogalog
Kelly's right about this. Stewart Brand is not an Al Gore, even if he plays one at a lectern from time to time.

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Posted by Vanderleun at September 18, 2008 9:46 AM | TrackBack
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Agreed.

I was fortunate to have worked with Stuart, Kevin Kelly and many others back in the early 80's at a small non-profit organization in La Jolla. We were involved in exploring the usefulness of "online teleconferencing" using the New Jersey Institute of Technology's EIES system. "The Well" which Gerard occasionally mentions was a direct result of that work.

Stuart Brand is a unique individual who deserves credit for having a vision of what could be and the ability to motivate others to share his enthusiasm for the possibilities of a connected world.

To paraphrase a line from the movie "I Robot", "all we see now is a result of what he saw there."

Posted by: Tom at September 18, 2008 12:37 PM

I logged on to Resource One in '74 (it was part of a hitchiking trip from Carbondale, Illinos to the West coast). 12 terminals hooked up to an old Xerox mainframe by modem around the Bay Area.

It inspired me to get into computers.

By '79 I had designed the I/O board that went into the world's first BBS.

Posted by: M. Simon at September 18, 2008 7:07 PM

Brand might not be Al Gore, but I don't think it too much of a stretch to say he's the father of Al Gore.

Or one of many, if such a manifest failure can be said to have many fathers.

M

Posted by: Mark Alger at September 19, 2008 5:49 AM
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