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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.
Oh My God, the RSS Feed Actually Works!
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
Friends, Bloggers, Countrymen ... lend your ears to these people. I come not to bury them, but praise them.
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My TIME articles
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Daily Blah for... Friday, April 21, 2006
You Know It Makes AdSense
Today's Daily Blah is brought to you in association with ... well, with whomever the Google AdSense service decided to put in the slot at the top of the page. I signed up for AdSense as an experiment -- well, wouldn't you be curious about how much money it brings in? -- but of course, if I get too many cries of horror from my loyal readership, I'll take it down. Papa doesn't need a new pair of shoes that badly.
Count it a victory for Larry and Sergey, who first outlined the AdSense idea to me in an interview in 2000. I was immensely skeptical at the time, amidst the crashing sound of so many dotcom business plans, and I may well have told them at the time that any system relying on micropayments and microrevenue was doomed to failure. Heh. Well, financial results like the one Google released yesterday don't lie, so consider this my official mea culpa.
This may be too much information, but I had a dream about Larry and Sergey last night. We were chatting at the Googleplex about a dozen different topics when I hit on the idea that I wanted to book them for an interview in seven years' time, when they turn 40. I thought that moment would make great Time cover material; they'd be poster boys for Generation X entering a new and difficult decade. Suddenly, in walked Queen Elizabeth II. She announced she'd had the exact same idea, and wanted to book them first. "No offense, dear," I told her, "but you don't have a lot of journalism experience. Television experience, sure. But that isn't the same thing."
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