About 95436.com: the interview begins

Many people beyond the West County are intrigued with the notion of a community-centered "weblog"/discussion area/online calendar. One of my friends, Christian Crumlish, the publisher of Radio Free Blogistan and other online ventures, asked if he could interview me about the genesis of this experiment.

This post and the comments that follow will constitute that interview. Christian will be along sometime to start the questioning. When he does, his name will appear in the "Recent Comments" section in the right sidebar. Click on that and you'll be looking on.

Although the interview is nominally between the two of us, neither Christian nor I will mind if any of you ask a question or make a comment.

The interview will continue until Christian gets tired of it.

Comments

[xian]

Heigh-ho, Roger. Thanks for inviting me to stop by and learn more about what you're about here at 94536.com. I think to avoid some of the confusing threading that can happen in online discussions, I'll try to stick to one question at a time, at least at first.

So, to start off, could you tell me a little bit about the origin of the site, where the idea came from, how you got started, and what your goals are?

[Roger Karraker]

To "get" the answer you need to know that I've been a journalist for about 45 years, since junior high school. I have a lot of gripes about "the media" but in the end, journalism -- communicating information -- is the crucial.

I believe you can trace the genesis of this system to an off-hand remark made by Stewart Brand, a legendary guy, perhaps 20 years ago. Brand, for those not familiar with his record, has been made a difference at three crucial junctions in our time:

1. When the even-more legendary Doug Engelbart first demonstrated the tools of modern computing in the early 1960s -- the mouse, a pointer, windows and so on -- Stewart Brand was the youngish guy running Engelbart's audio-visual techniques.

This was the first time when anyone got a glimmer that computing could be different from a corporate behemoth.

2. In 1968 Brand "invented" (i.e., published) the first Whole Earth Catalog, a revolutionary publication touting "access to tools (books, ideas, etc.) in a format similar to how L.L. Bean sold clothes and shoes.

The Catalog won the National Book Award in 1970 (I think) and has spawned many successors. I wrote for one edition of it, circa 1994. If you see a book that calls itself a "catalog," it's drawing on Brand's pioneering vision. A quarterly magazine, Whole Earth Review, came later.

I was pleased to be write a cover story for WER in Winter 1991, "Highways of the Mind." The article was the first major-publication feature about something we were later to call the Internet. You'll still find dozens of copies of the "Highways" article on the Web and in some college textbooks.

3. In 1985 Brand returned to computers, convinced they were an important communications tool. He co-founded The Well, the pioneering online community out of which has influenced countless online ventures.

Indeed, the idea for the merger of AOL and Time-Warner was first hatched on The Well, championed by Tom Mandel. TiVo can trace its roots to a 1988 idea by Blair Newman.

I was privileged to be a conference host on the Well from 1987-1999 and I still call it home.

---

In 1987 Brand wrote a pioneering book "The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT". He told of early research on things that were pie-in-the-sky then, but are now commonplace: high-definition television, DVDs and so on. Again, piggybacking on Brand's ideas, I was able to write many articles for technology magazines such as MacWeek, Networker, MicroTimes and many others from 1988 to 1997.

But in the midst of all this techno derring-do, Brand surprised us all one day by saying that if he had his life to live over that he would want to be the editor/publisher of a village weekly. He thought that would be the most productive role possible.

That got me to thinking, because I'd written for community papers for many years. In my case, I would NOT want to be the publisher of a weekly print paper because the economics of small newspaper publishing is horrible.

Based on my Well experience I experimented with all kinds of online discussion systems. I started systems for my students at Santa Rosa Junior College and helped found The River, a Well alternative, in 1995.

In the past six months or so what I saw was that blogging or "personal publishing" software could be tweaked to provide essentially a low-cost (almost no-cost) "community newspaper" and some version of cheap conferencing or forum software could provide the dynamic exchange that communities need.

So I decided to do it. Sorry to be so long-winded, but that's the genesis of 95436.com. The site is an experiment, a constant work-in-progress, to see if this idea has merit.

I knew that Vesta Copestakes, the editor/publisher of the Forestville Gazette, wanted to put the paper's stories online. But she didn't have the budget or the technical people. A previous attempt by a techie on her behalf was a debacle.

I put together most of the design you see now, asked Vesta to email me a couple of stories and she really liked it. So we teamed up. I see it as an intelligent blending of the 19th-century community weekly with the instant-coverage capabilities (and extended discussions) of modern blogging/conferencing.

Whew. That was too windy, but there you are. I'll deal with goals tomorrow or Sunday. That will be a much shorter post, I assure you.

[xian]

Long is fine! I like the long view. Since I cheated and packed a few angles into my first question(s), I'll just sit on my hands for the time being and let you address the matter of goals before posting a followup question.

[Vesta Copestakes]

A goal I have for the site is to encourage people who have meetings of specific and general interest to let us know what, where and when they are so that more people can become involved.

There are so many clubs, associations, councils, committees, etc. that not only meet on a regular basis, but that also meet for specific purposes, and sometimes with not enough lead time to let the media know about them. The immediacy of this weblog allows them to poist those meetings.

[Vesta Copestakes]

A goal I have for the site is to encourage people who have meetings of specific and general interest to let us know what, where and when they are so that more people can become involved.

There are so many clubs, associations, councils, committees, etc. that not only meet on a regular basis, but that also meet for specific purposes, and sometimes with not enough lead time to let the media know about them. The immediacy of this weblog allows them to post those meetings for others to learn about and attend.

[Mary Nelson]

Fascinating! I knew of Stewart Brand and his works. His beat goes on.

[Mary Nelson]

Fascinating! I knew of Stewart Brand and his works. His beat goes on.

[xian]

OK, I am now willing to question whether an interview in blog format works. There doesn't seem to be a reminder mechanism for Roger or others to come back and answer question number 2 let alone further questions I had in mind.

Should we move it to email or some other format? We could still publish excerpts or highlights at this site after the fact?

Also, I see you have many duplicate comments. Somebody should be checking the MT backend to delete the dupes every now and then (just a best-practice).

In other news, my book's website is now open to the public (the link on my name for this comment now points there).

[Roger Karraker]

Good points, Christian. We'll continue the interview in email or on your blog.