stevenberlinjohnson.com: This year's model

A little while ago, when Nick Denton first started talking to me about his ideas for weblog-based businesses, I tried unsuccessfully to persuade him that there was an interesting subscription-based service that would basically offer an integrated package of all the cool blogosphere/web services/google mini-apps. For a few bucks a month you'd get access to the latest data-mining tools, and have someone crunching all the data for topics that you were interested in, notifying you if anything new came along. I imagined it as a company with basically one super-smart coder as the primary employee, with a few others tossing in ideas part-time. Wouldn't make a fortune for anyone, but it might be sustainable.

I don't think I did a very good job of persuading Nick, alas. (Probably for good reason.) But I'm very intrigued by Technorati, which seems to have at least a few of the elements that I imagined, and which sports a subscription service right out of the gate. The watchlist feature is the most intriguing thus far, though I suspect there's even more in the works...

The Basics

I'm a father of three boys, husband of one wife, and author of eight books, and co-founder of three web sites. We spend most of the year in Marin County, California though I'm on the road a lot giving talks. (You can see the full story here.) Personal correspondence should go to sbeej68 at gmail dot com. If you're interested in having me speak at an event, drop a line to Wesley Neff at the Leigh Bureau (WesN at Leighbureau dot com.)

My Books

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
An exploration of environments that lead to breakthrough innovation, in science, technology, business, and the arts. I conceived it as the closing book in a trilogy on innovative thinking, after Ghost Map and Invention. But in a way, it completes an investigation that runs through all the books. Sold more copies in hardcover than anything else I've written.
The Invention of Air
The story of the British radical chemist Joseph Priestley, who ended up having a Zelig-like role in the American Revolution. My version of a founding fathers book, and a reminder that most of the Enlightenment was driven by open source ideals.
The Ghost Map
The latest: the story of a terrifying outbreak of cholera in 1854 London 1854 that ended up changing the world. An idea book wrapped around a page-turner. I like to think of it as a sequel to Emergence if Emergence had been a disease thriller. You can see a trailer for the book here.
Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
The title says it all. This one sparked a slightly insane international conversation about the state of pop culture -- and particularly games. There were more than a few dissenters, but the response was more positive than I had expected. And it got me on The Daily Show, which made it all worthwhile.
Mind Wide Open : Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
My first best-seller, and the only book I've written in which I appear as a recurring character, subjecting myself to a battery of humiliating brain scans. The last chapter on Freud and the neuroscientific model of the mind is one of my personal favorites.
Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
The story of bottom-up intelligence, from slime mold to Slashdot. Probably the most critically well-received all my books, and the one that has influenced the most eclectic mix of fields: political campaigns, web business models, urban planning, the war on terror.
Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate
My first. The book I wrote instead of finishing my dissertation. Still in print almost a decade later, and still relevant, I think. But I haven't read it in a while, so who knows what's in there!

Comments

is it just me or is that site a confusing, jumbled mess of confusion? it has the makings of something good--- it sounds like it should be good-- but i can't spend hours figuring it out.

Posted by: heif | December 08, 2002 at 12:45 PM

Thanks for the nice review! It's funny that you mention that your ideal site would be run by one person, which is true in the ase of Technorati. My hope was that it would help to pay the bills with watchlist subscriptions, but so far, I haven't been able to quit my day job. :-)

And I'm sorry if you find it confusing - please send me feedback so I can improve it!

Posted by: David Sifry | December 09, 2002 at 06:38 AM