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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
"It's really funny and informative." - Dave Eggers, author
"The Blah is becoming a daily destination for me." - Richard Marsh, Playwright
"I like it, and I don't." - Fiona Hogg, Teacher
"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Second-guessing The Steve
Why did he do it? I've been asked this question roughly 200 times today, give or take 199. Why did Steve Jobs sell out to Disney? Why take one of the jewels of the Bay Area and dump it in Hollywood's lap?
And the honest answer is, I have no idea. I'm just truly grateful that I'm not getting calls from an editor at Time demanding I squeeze The Steve for said information. My head is in a completely different space these days, pun intended. (Don't worry, all will become clear once I can talk about it.)
But why sell now? Well, if you're looking for fanciful secretive reasons, maybe he saw an early print of Cars and believed it to be Pixar's first ever turkey. Steve does tend to form strong instant opinions; I can imagine he's walked out of plenty of movies in the first five minutes. Maybe he's focused on the video iPod and wanted as much leverage as possible with other media companies. I hereby predict that every piece of ABC content ever produced will be available for the iPod by this time next year, and a good number of Disney movies too.
What he doesn't want to do is run Disney directly. He has almost certainly been offered the job at least once. He'd hate it, just as he hates the whole L.A. scene. No, he wants to be the grand visionary on the board, with bold long-term goals and the threat, never spoken, of dumping all his Disney shares and walking out if he doesn't get his way.
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