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- ISBN13: 9780307451361
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
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
November 14, 2009 at 7:23 am
“Which voices can we trust when millions are fighting for attention, yet most write only for a handful” asks Rosenberg at the beginning of “Say Everything.” A key question for today’s blogosphere, and unfortunately also the high point of the book. Basically “Say Everything” is much ado about nothing – most bloggers write solipsisms and only for themselves. Worse yet, most are also obnoxious and ignorant. So, which voices can we trust – primarily those vouched for by a credible source who also have the time and resources to verify material, usually a well-regarded newspaper and its reporters.
Rating: 1 / 5
November 14, 2009 at 7:52 am
Scott Rosenberg takes tons of information and puts in in the context of some really interesting people like Justin Hall and some world-changing events like 9/11 to give us a history of the Net and blogging. Even though these are both topics I’m familiar with, I learned a lot. And more importantly, it really got me thinking about what came before and what might be down the road for blogs and whatever is next. Definitely recommend even if you’re only slightly interested in the topic.
Rating: 4 / 5
November 14, 2009 at 8:30 am
It’s a bit weird reading “Say Everything,” Scott Rosenberg’s book about the history of blogging. I’ve read lots of tech books, but this one involves many people I know, directly or indirectly, and an industry I’ve been part of since its relatively early days. I’ve corresponded with many of the book’s characters, linked back and forth with them, even met a few in person from time to time. And I directly experienced and participated in many of the changes Rosenberg writes about.
The history the book tells, mostly in the first couple of hundred pages, feels right. He doesn’t try to find The First Blogger, but he outlines how the threads came together to create the first blogs, and where things went after that. Then Rosenberg turns to analysis and commentary, which is also good. I never found myself thinking, Hey, that’s not right! or You forgot the most important part!–and according to Rosenberg, that was the feeling about mainstream reporting that got people like Dave Winer, a major instigator of the technology, blogging to begin with.
Rosenberg’s last book, “Dreaming in Code,” came out only last year, in 2008, so much of what’s in “Say Everything” is remarkably current. He covers why blogging is likely to survive newer phenomena like Facebook and Twitter. And he doesn’t hold back in his scorn for the largely old-fashioned thinking of his former newspaper colleagues (he used to work at the San Francisco Examiner before helping found [...]).
But then I hit page 317, where he writes:
“…bloggers attend to philosophical discourse as well as pop-cultural ephemera; they document private traumas as well as public controversies. They have sought faith and spurned it, chronicled awful illnesses and mourned unimaginable losses.”
That caused a bit of a pang. After all, that’s what I’ve been doing on my blog, writing about my cancer, for the past few years. It hit close to home. Next, page 357:
“For some wide population of bloggers, there is ample reason to keep writing about a troubled marriage or a cancer diagnosis or a death in the family, regardless of how many ethical dilemmas must be traversed, or how trivial or amateurish their labours are judged.”
Okay, sure, there are lots of cancer bloggers out there. I’m just projecting my own experience onto Rosenberg’s writing, right? Except, several hundred pages earlier, Rosenberg had written about an infamous blogger dustup between Jason Calacanis and Dave Winer at the Gnomedex 2007 conference in Seattle.
The same conference where, via video link, I gave a presentation, about which Rosenberg wrote on his blog:
“Derek K. Miller is a longtime Canadian blogger [who'd] been slated to give a talk at Gnomedex, but he’s still recovering from an operation, so making the trip to Seattle wasn’t in the cards. Instead, he spoke to the conference from his bed via a video link, and talked about what it’s been like to tell the story of his cancer experience in public and in real time. Despite the usual video-conferencing hiccups (a few stuttering images and such), it was an electrifying talk.”
Later that month, he mentioned me in an article in the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper. When he refers to people blogging about a cancer diagnosis, he doesn’t just mean people like me, he means *me*. Thus I don’t think I can be objective about this book. I think it’s a good one. I think it tells an honest and comprehensive story about where blogging came from and why it’s important. Yet I’m too close to the story–even if not by name, I’m *in* the story–to evaluate it dispassionately.
Then again, as Rosenberg writes, one of blogging’s strengths is in not being objective. In declaring your interests and conflicts and forging ahead with your opinion and analysis anyway, and interacting online with other people who have other opinions.
So, then: “Say Everything” is a good book. You should read it–after all, not only does it talk about a lot of people I know, I’m in it too!
Rating: 5 / 5
November 14, 2009 at 10:35 am
Scott’s overview of the who, what, when, where and why of blogging is tremendous. It’s a terrific read – not too insidery for people who didn’t live through this, and pitch-perfect for those who did. He covers the controversies without picking sides, makes old stories relevant by showing their connection to today’s trends, and manages to highlight many of the right personalities to tell the broader arc of blogging.
This isn’t a geek book – Scott appropriately stays away from endless acronyms, buzzwords and jargon, and instead rightly focuses on the stories that have helped make so many of us devotees of the medium. If you’re wondering why there are so many blogs today, it’s hard to imagine a better primer than Say Everything. More importantly, if you want to understand what that ubiquity means as we look ahead, give the book a read.
Rating: 5 / 5
November 14, 2009 at 10:56 am
“Say Everything” is a detailed account of the history of blogging as well as the individuals who brought about this medium which is growing in popularity each day. I had read other books on blogging, however there was much I was not aware of that became apparent as I was making my way through this book. For example, did you know that blogging has been around for roughly 15 years? This is one aspect that I found astounding considering that much of the population is just now becoming aware of blogs.
The author writes in great detail, probably providing more information than most would likely care to know – although this is one of the strengths of this book – even if you are well versed in the Internet and blogging you will get something out of “Say Everything.” On the other hand if you are new to blogging and would like to learn what everyone is talking about, this book makes the topic approachable.
One complaint I do have is this book felt very long to me. At nearly 400 pages it sometimes felt as if I would never finish. This style seems strikingly contrary to the format of blogging – which lends itself to short bursts of easily digestible information. I feel that “Say Everything” would have been much stronger if it actually followed the blogging format – it felt strangely out of place to treat the topic so comprehensively, yet in an pre-blogging style of writing. Although this should not discourage you from purchasing this book, it is worth noting as some investment in time is required.
Overall I found “Say Everything” to be a fascinating read based on the author’s perspective as a blogging insider who had witnessed the early days of the medium firsthand. Although a bit long, it is worth the time and effort if you are interested in blogging, and the Internet.
Rating: 4 / 5