Scripting News: If Jason were a mensch

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

If Jason were a mensch

He'd apologize as follows.

"Dave, I'm sorry I made it sound like you were the only person at Gnomedex talking back during my speech. In fact, the chatroom and Twitter were erupting, and people were talking in the audience, and you weren't even the first person to speak out loud. I'm also sorry for all the personal things I said about you, I have no insight into your personality, I'm still trying to figure myself out. At age 37, I haven't even had my mid-life crisis yet!"

And he'd also apologize to Nick Denton.

"Nick, I'm sorry I called you a 'fucking liar' on stage at Gnomedex. I think sometimes you stretch the truth, and maybe you actually lie, but I lie too, and I wouldn't like it if someone talked about me that way."

And to Google.

"To our friends at Google I'd like to apologize for saying that your search engine is filled with spam."

And finally, he'd apologize to the people at Gnomedex.

"To the people who came to Gnomedex, I realize that you took time off from work, and paid to attend the conference, and in many cases paid for your travel and hotel, in some cases thousands of dollars, only to hear an advertisement. That might have been okay if my talk weren't about the evils of advertising and how it was destroying the Internet we know and love. Boy was that ironic and I am really sorry for wasting so much of your time and money."

Bonus 1: Wikipedia page and Google search for mensch.

Bonus 2: Wired report on the Calacanis speech, just after it happened.

Bonus 3: Dave W as viewed by Tim O and Jason C. ";->"

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:25 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

Jul Sep