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Saturday, April 30, 2005
Here's to the next 50 
| | For his 50th birthday, Dave requests a little linklove to help climb the Technorati Top 100, where he's currently at #9. I'm #8, and I'd gladly yield. Dave deserves to be ahead of me; and he's been a beacon in my own life for more than two decades. |
| | I first met Dave and his brother Peter at a Comdex in '83 or '84 (not sure which), when Think Tank first came out. The product blew my mind. Billed as a "thought processor," I knew immediately that it was perfect for the way I thought, the way I wrote, the way I understood the world. |
| | Think Tank evolved into MORE. No program has done more for my writing than MORE (which still runs on OS X, in Classic mode, by the way). And no individual has done more for my writing than Dave. |
| | I got to know Dave gradually over the years, and to respect both his insights and his contributions — first, to the software industry, and second, to the Web. |
| | The biggest kick in the pants my writing ever got was when Dave rejected a guest DaveNet that I wrote. I don't remember what he said — just that it was blunt and accurate and helpful. |
| | He told me he didn't want me writing any DaveNets anyway. He wanted me writing my own stuff, directly onto the Web. In fact, he wanted everybody to do the same thing. |
| | I don't know how many writers Dave was personally pushing to blog, but I know he succeeded with Dan Gillmor and myself, in the fall of 1999. Dave set me up with doc-weblogs.com, taught me how to EditThisPage (still a killer name), and has provided exceptionally useful guidance ever since. |
| | A couple years ago, I was talking with a well-known blogger who had just turned 30, and who wanted to let me know all the things he hoped to accomplish by the time he was 35. I asked him why he was in such a rush — and why he was telling me (of all people) about his hurry-up ambitions. He said it was because I had accomplished so much, and that I was kind of a role model for him. |
| | "Dude," I said, "Everything you know me for I've done since I was 50." And lemme tell ya, it's highly doubtful I'd be nearly as well known if Dave Winer hadn't made me blog. |
| | When they scroll the credits of my life, Dave's is going to be one of the first names on the list. |
| | And when they scroll the credits for Journalism on the Web (which will exceed journalism everywhere else — in both volume and importance), Dave's name will run at the top of that list, too. |
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