The folks at the new Blogs.com included RexBlog on a list of popular CEO Blogs . When I saw the list, all I could think of was back when my children were young, hearing Cookie Monster sing, one of these things is not like the other things .

Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape (at age 22), Opsware and Ning (translation: the smartest guy in the room), is joining the board of FaceBook, according to TechCrunch.

Andreessen, of course, has a unique position in the history of the Internet. His entrepreneurial success is also well documented. However, it was not until he started blogging that I realized what a great thinker and writer — a communicator — he is. (Although, like others, he has slowed down his blogging recently.)

I hope Andreessen’s joining FaceBook’s board sends an “openness” message regarding the future of FaceBook. Andreessen’s company, Ning, offers a platform for setting up a FaceBook-like community for your club, church, cause or company. In the past, I have perceived Ning as competitive to what I thought the longterm plans of FaceBook were. Granted, I can understand how the two could be complimentary — FaceBook is focused on macro-community, Ning is focused on micro-community. Obviously, my understanding (translation: speculation) means nothing as Andreessen and Zuckerberg are the only two minds that really had to be melded on this.

Fortunately, because Andreessen blogs, we can understand a little of how his mind works regarding the ways in which social platforms need to work together. On May 14, for example, he wrote about Ning’s integration of two “social” initiatives from Google, Open Social and Friend Connect. (They also support other initiatives like “Open ID.”)

Here’s a quote from that May 14th post:

“From a strategy standpoint, we want to enable maximum flow both into and out of Ning networks and the rest of the web. It should be as easy as possible for users to get from elsewhere on the web into a Ning network, and likewise as easy as possible to flow from a Ning network to anywhere else on the web — and ideally, while taking their social context with them. We think this makes strategic sense for two key reasons:

First, it’s good for users, and whatever is good for users is good for a service like Ning. We think that’s obvious.

Second, you don’t get lots of flow into anything on the web without having lots of flow out to the broader web.

Having someone on FaceBook’s board who advocates that point of view is a good thing for FaceBook — and the rest of us who develop tools and content designed to build community.

A comment on comments: Yesterday, I wrote the following on Twitter:

“FriendFeed, Twitter, Seesmic et al, are pointing in the direction of something. They aren’t the destination.”

Because everything I post on Twitter (and other places) is mirrored on FriendFeed, the “tweet” appeared there at the same time.

If you look at the comments following that FriendFeed post, you’ll note that my friend (and I don’t mean that just because we said so on FaceBook) Dave Winer commented that he, “Totally agree(d) with this.”

Because so many people have learned that it’s important to listen to Dave (even when they disagree with him) his FriendFeed comment about my “tweet” led to a robust disussion that still lingers 17 hours later.

Which leads me to the topic of comments: A small group of the people who read this blog are currently obsessed with trying to understand where “comments” fit into conversational media. Even those of us who think we at least have a grasp of social media — who know its role in de-centralizing “content” — are fascinated (and some, upset) that comments on our blogs are now becoming de-centralized.

It fascinates me that some bloggers, who more often than not, are using their blog to comment on items they read elsewhere, are becoming upset that comments about their posts are taking place elsewhere.

As for me, I love that comments are finally being recognized as the treasure they are.

I don’t care where the conversation takes place. I want to understand it and embrace it.

Why I find all of this fascinating: You know that kid who loves tearing apart physical things to understand how they work. The one who can actually put the stuff he or she tears apart back together again. “She should be an engineer when she grows up,” people will say about that kid.

I wasn’t that kid.

But looking back, I was obsessed with tearing apart virtual things to understand how they work. I was never interested in how my television worked, but I was extremely curious about how programs were written and produced. I was never really that interested in printing presses, but I can’t remember a time I didn’t wonder about how reporters gathered news and editorial decisions were made. I was also fascinated with what today I’d call group dynamics and how teams and clubs and cliques came together and grew or fell apart. I was an organizer of groups and a conversation “moderator” decades before I even realized that groups and conversation need to be organized and moderated. I was fascinated with why fans become fans and what “loyalty” is all about. I was that kid.

For almost 20 years (back to the CompuServe days) the online world has provided me (and many others like me) with an amazing laboratory in which we get to tear apart the flow of information and the creation of conversation and community in an attempt to understand how they work. For some of us, that’s like being a kid in a, well, info-candy shop.

I’ll admit. I’m not merely doing this for fun. I have a business that allows me to apply what I learn in this laboratory to improve our internal conversations and community — and to incorporate what we learn into improving and enhancing the products and services we sell. But, I think it’s also apparent that I still have a child-like curiousity about the ways in which people use technology to share with one-another and to spread information — and create community.

The most important thing I’ve learned is this: It’s not about the technology. I know so many people who are “afraid” of something because they think it’s “technology.” Frankly, technology developers don’t help things by creating products that are driven by features and functions than by ease-of-use. It still amazes me that after 30 years, so many professional marketers don’t understand why Apple has a cult following. “Cool” is what marketers think Apple is all about. “Not corporate” perhaps, you know, that I’m a Mac, I’m a PC thing, perhaps. As a Mac-tard since 1984, I’ll tell you why Apple has a cult following. They make products for people who don’t give a rip about technology. They make products for users. And even though they don’t say it anymore, their products are for the “rest of us” who don’t really care how the technology works, we just want the technology to disappear so we can listen, read, write, create, share, buy, sell, etc.

I’m obsessed with what’s taking place here. But I’m obsessed as a user and “content” creator and “community” builder and participant.

That’s why I’m such a geek.

[Photo: cocoen via Flickr.]

Early blogger Moses announcing,
“God told me bloggers love
linking to top-ten lists.”

Andrew Sullivan is pondering aloud what many other early and prolific bloggers (I confess) are wondering these days: Are we losing our ability to read (and write) in the long-form.

Two quotes:

“When it comes to sitting down and actually reading a multiple-page print-out, or even, God help us, a book, however, my mind seizes for a moment. After a paragraph, I’m ready for a new link. But the prose in front of my nose stretches on. I get antsy. I skim the footnotes for the quick info high that I’m used to. No good. I scan the acknowledgments, hoping for a name I recognise. I start again. A few paragraphs later, I reach for the laptop. It’s not that I cannot find the time for real reading, for a leisurely absorption of argument or narrative. It’s more that my mind has been conditioned to resist it….”

“…Some have suggested a web sabbath – a day or two in the week when we force ourselves not to read e-mails or post blogs or text messages; a break in order to think in the old way again: to look at human faces in the flesh rather than on a Facebook profile, to read a book rather than a blog, to pray rather than browse.

I could point to lots of early and prolific bloggers who have “struggled” with where blogging fits with other forms of self-expression — both long-form and short. I appreciate when long-time bloggers openingly share their inner debates regarding whether or not they should keep blogging at the same pace.

However, unlike Sullivan (and the Nick Carr book article that spurred his essay), many of those I follow are not pining for the return to long-form, but are being pulled by shorter and shorter forms of communication and expression. Yesterday, for example, Fred Wilson wrote, “I think its time to acknowledge that long form blogging every day may be coming to an end.” He was reflecting on his recent use of “micro-blogging” tools like Twitter and Tumblr. Steve Rubel has written several times on the topic and has cut-back considerably on his blogging as he has stepped up his usage of microblogging services like Twitter and FriendFeed.

Other bloggers are heading in the other direction. Jeff Jarvis (who still blogs and tweets prolifically) is writing a book (For the record, I don’t recall ever reading anything from Jeff questioning whether long-form, short-form, video — or using chalk on the sidewalk have priority over any other form of self-expression). Hugh McLeod will also have a book coming out soon. Hugh is one of my favorite bloggers on the topic of sharing-out-loud his personal conflicts with different forms of what I call “conversational media.” He is an early adopter and tremendous role model for effective use of each new service, but he’s also an artist who struggles (aloud) with how such new forms of communication can impact — both positively and negatively — his work.

Historically, my favorite blog post on the topic of giving up blogging was written by Dave Winer on March 3, 2006. The topic was “Why I Will Stop Blogging” by the end of 2006. Of course he didn’t. And I personally have thanked and continue to thank him for not. His continued blogging has led to some great ideas that he’s constantly developing. It’s also led to some very focused political commentary that has probably helped interest many in the political process who previously have been less focused on the topic.

Personally, I definitely see “blogging” evolving. I’ve never really liked the word “blog” (despite the name of this blog) and have always said that “blogging” may not last, but having a platform where an individual can “broadcast” (or, as Doc Searls describes it, send and e-mail to the world) will be around forever. For example, on our company website, Hammock.com, every employee has a “People Page.” They’re very blog-like and even run on MovableType. But no one is required to use them — and for some, they’re merely a bio. We’ve specifically said, this isn’t your blog, and have provided guidance on how to use such a platform in a work context. I use mine to say whether or not I’m in the office and comment about work-specific topics. (We have other blogs on the site where people are encouraged to write about professional topics — and activities related to work. And we’ve encouraged and assisted employees in setting up personal blogs.) Like Fred, I also have a Tumblr-powered website — RexHammock.com — that is completely unrelated to anything I do professionally. I am very random about what I post there. It has no theme other than I’ve found something interesting that I want to share with the half-dozen or so people who have discovered the site.

Finally, I have this theory: People don’t read past the first paragraph of a blog post (or the first sentence of an e-mail). If you are reading this sentence you are completely blowing my theory. You are to be commended and you prove that at least one person — you — still has an amazing attention span. Congratulations. Now, go read a book and enjoy your day.

Oh, and Happy Father’s Day.

The Important Part: There are those who preach that print is dead. I’m starting to believe it’s reading that’s dead. I am convinced people don’t read past the first sentence of an email, the first paragraph of a blog post, the headline of a news story, the first 30 characters of a tweet on Twitter. I’m thinking of writing a very long book on this topic, but after the first chapter it will only be greeking.

The Funny Part: I think people look at pictures and love charts — even if they don’t understand them. And video, people really love video. But only if they are how-to videos, videos of someone making a fool of themselves — or of someone else. Or if they are funny videos that allow geeks to laugh at themselves, like these:

Over the years, it’s been fascinating to watch the light turn on for certain people regarding what’s taking place in the marketplace of “content” (excuse me, Doc). For example, today, Paul Krugman writes an “a-ha” piece after using an Amazon Kindle for a couple of months.

Quote:

“Indeed, if e-books become the norm, the publishing industry as we know it may wither away. Books may end up serving mainly as promotional material for authors’ other activities, such as live readings with paid admission. Well, if it was good enough for Charles Dickens, I guess it’s good enough for me.

Whenever I read something like that, I have to take a deep breath and admit to myself that not everyone has spent the past 20 years obsessed with this topic. Whenever I read something like that, I wish I had a place to point people to a few seminal writings that have provided similar a-ha-moments to really geeky folks (like me) — but a long time ago.

If you have some more writings that provided an a-ha moment to you, please add them to the comments.

Here are a few of my go-to ones:

1. The Esther Dyson essay, “Intellectual Value,” written in the July, 1995, issue of Wired magazine. (Krugman quotes Dyson in his piece today, but does not link to it.) Go ahead, commit it to memory. It’s like the Gettysburg Address.

2. The book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, grew from this now “read-only landmark website.” (Here’s a place to read the book for free.) It pretty much foresees everything that marketing is becoming. It’s like when Luther nailed his 95 theses to that door in Wittenburg.

3. While not a specific article, I find myself referring often to the concept Paul Saffo coined “macro-myopia.” It relates to forecasting the impact of new technology and means, roughly, “in the short term we overestimate, in the long term we underestimate” the impact of new technology. This is an idea I’ve written about several times over the years (on the Cluetrain listserv in 2000, here in 2002 and in 2004 when Paul explained his role in adding to a concept developed by Roy Amara, Ev Rogers and others. The importance of the concept today is this: When those of us who are obsessed with technology see something that we know is going to change everything, we delude ourselves into thinking the change will be overnight. Technology adoption has a very predictable cycle and even those technologies that look like instant hits are likely catching a wave that was two-decades in the building.

Two bonus long reads for those who find comfort in realizing all these new ideas have been around a long, long time.:

4. The 1945 article, “As We May Think,” by Vannevar Bush (synopsis).

5. The Machine Stops, a 1909 science fiction novella (12,000 words) by E.M. Forster.

The Important Part: In the current issue of BusinessWeek (and online), Heather Green and Stephen Baker have written a great overview of where “social media” (not just blogs, but all the conversational media and social networking tools and platforms out there) are today as it relates to business. Not, as over-reported in the technology blogosphere, about the business of social media. And not about the tools and features and investment opportunities and anything else gee-whiz that’s going on. This BusinessWeek story is about how all these activities and connections and conversations that are taking place online are changing the way business is conducted.

The Take-Away: The article may not be eye-opening to a crowd who spends all day reading tech-blogs and camping-out on Twitter, but it’s a great article to forward to a “C-Level” person at your company or organization who you think could benefit from a high level view of what is transpiring — from a “media brand” they know.

The Less Important Rambling: Over the past three years, I’ve gotten to know BusinessWeek writers (and bloggers) Stephen Baker and Heather Green pretty well. I haven’t actually met them face-to-face, but we’ve shared conversations about Heather’s wedding, Stephen’s book and a myriad of other “important” and trivial matters. We’re “friends” on all those online networking things you’ve ever heard of (and many you probably haven’t if you’re not a Web 2.0 wonk). Because of that, it may seem weird, but I actually know more about what Stephen and Heather are up to than many acquaintances — and friends — I know “off line.”

For example, because we follow each other via Twitter and Facebook, I knew they recently worked on updating a story from May, 2005 with information and insight that has emerged during the past three years. In that second link, they’ve literally annotated the first article with contemporary statistics and knowledge. That’s a brilliantly creative reporting technique that I’ve never seen before as it uses visual cues from the Word document “change tracking” feature so readers can easily see where the new information has been inserted.

If it weren’t Saturday morning of a three-day weekend, I might be tempted to keep rambling, but I have much less important things that are beckoning me at the moment.

Today, I’m officially declaring — after eight years of denying it — that this a geek blog. If you read it because I write about magazines and marketing and social media, that’s fine. Those are the topics I write about, but you need to know that this blog is not really about those topics, it’s about technology.

This is a geek blog, okay.

To prove this, I’ve decided to display my "wikio" badge that says this blog is "ranked" #180 among the gazillion technology blogs in the world . I must confess, I was somewhat surprised when Lisa from Wiko e-mailed me to encourage me to display that badge as I’ve never really thought of this blog as being a "technology blog." As I said, I thought it was more of a marketing blog, but it’s only ranked #118 in that department. Heck, in the industry I actually work in (an industry now being called "content marketing"), my blog is only ranked #60 . Actually, that’s a good thing, as it means there are now at least 60 better blogs about a topic no one was blogging about but me for most of the years I’ve been blogging — and I’ve always known I was doing a terrible job "covering" it.

For years, I’ve known that I was confusing people who need to pigeon-hole blogs into a specific topic. That’s why you’ll never find my blog ranked high on services that try to designate a cluster of "top blogs" on a certain topic.

But it’s getting to the point where, if you blog, you have to declare a major .

So, today, I’m declaring a major: technology.

Knowing that technology is the most blogged about topic there is (except, perhaps, knitting), I figure being #180 provides me with enough geek-cred that I can wear my badge proudly.

But I must admit, the real reason I’m displaying the badge is a column in the New York Times today by David Brooks .

Brooks is at his best when he weaves cultural threads into trend tapestries that can be understood by those who may know something is taking place, but can’t quite figure out, "the big picture." (His book Bobos in Paradise is a great example of his skills at this.) Today, in his Times column, he takes on the task of trying to interpret for a general audience why geeks are now cool.

Quote:

"…new technology created a range of mental playgrounds where the new geeks could display their cultural capital. The jock can shine on the football field, but the geeks can display their supple sensibilities and well-modulated emotions on their Facebook pages, blogs, text messages and Twitter feeds."

Hey, that’s me.

I’m a geek. This blog is about geeky things. I now have proof.

The last person on the blogosphere needing me to echo-chamber him is Robert Scoble, but this post is a wonderful challenge to something that is so embedded as conventional wisdom, I thought of it as truth before reading what Robert wrote. The CW is this: There’s too much noise on the Internet and what we really need is something that helps us reduce the (buzz term warning) signal-to-noise-ratio. But (now that Robert has enlightened me) the fact of the matter is this: If we (and if you’re reading this on an RSS news feed or on my blog, you’re a part of the “we”) weren’t noise junkies, we would be getting our information via the telegraph.

Robert’s post is in praise of noise — for noise, says Robert, is where you discover patterns and tidbits that become news.

Ironically, it can be argued that Robert is saying he enjoys being a filter for the rest of us — serving as a hunter, gatherer of the information that the rest of us may find of interest. We know we don’t have the time, access or endurance to hang out with all the geeks Robert hangs out with — so we entrust him to put up with all of that noise and hassle so he can share with us a firehose of tidbits he picks up. In turn, the thousands of people who follow Robert serve as a filter to discover his “best-of” stuff so those who can stand even less noise, can pick it up in a more-quiet way, via Techmeme, for instance.

Some people hate noise so much, they’ll actually wait 30 minutes for news to hit CNN. And still others have such low tolerance for noise, they’ll actually wait until the Wall Street Journal and New York Times are printed and delivered in the morning to learn what happened today.

And, still others, love the “quiet” so much, they wait until next week and read about stuff in Time or Newsweek.

If you’re reading this, it’s hard for you to claim that you’re not somewhat of a noise junkie. And, despite what Robert says, if you get your news via Techmeme or Google News, you’re still more of a noise junkie than most of the people you know who get their news from CNN and USA Today.

Robert lives far out on the extreme edges of the long tail of noise. The best reporters always do.

Using the idea of “noise” as a metaphorical framework for understanding how much of a filter you want before learning something that in your world may be considered “news,” is a great way to start understanding that the Internet and all this stuff we call Web 2.0 is as much about information and data and conversational flow as it is about technology.

Bonus link: Another thought-provoking post today is from Fred Wilson, who writes about data flow.

Next-day bonus link: Jeff Jarvis on why Twitter is the canary in the news coalmine. Another day, another metaphor to explain Twitter.

Via ReadWriteWeb.com’s Marshall Kirkpatrick, I learned about — and downloaded — a new “Adobe Air” application called Snackr that is total news-junkie crack. I’ve already had to turn it off because it’s one of those things that sucks out every last ounce of attention span your soul can muster.

It turns any OPML file (in this case, a file that lists the source URLs of RSS feeds) into an animated screen ticker that runs along any edge of your computer’s desktop. Imagine a stock ticker, but with news headlines from the web sources you’ve designated. At any point, you can click on the headline and ticker stops and reveals the summary excerpt of a post. (Later: Actually, the full feed is displayed — even more amazing.)

In other words, it’s like an RSS reader that is set up in a River of News mode, but in this case, the headlines are actually flowing.

On second thought, for those who attempt to describe RSS as a “push” technology, ala ““PointCast,” this will be your best example, so far.

On third thought, it turns every thing you follow online into something like a giant animated twitter feed.

It’s cool, but don’t download it. It’s crack, I tell you. It’s crack.

This analysis of the potential legal and strategic actions that may kick in if Microsoft decides to pursue a “hostile takeover” of Yahoo! is text-book thorough, but written with such clarity that even I can follow it.

As analysis on the topic, it rivals anything produced by the New York Times or Wall Street Journal.

What makes it unique is that it’s written as a personal blog-post by one of the most successful entrepreneurs of this generation, Marc Andreessen. For the post, he taps into the legal expertise of two leading San Francisco attorneys, but the “voice” of the piece is clearly (for those who read his blog) that of Andreessen.

If that billionaire gig doesn’t work out, Marc Andreesen sure would make a great editor.

Why? Because, as I noted the other day, in an age of information shuffling, the only writing that is of great value anymore is that which explains why something matters. Not only does Andreessen’s post explain with authority and clarity the nuance of corporate take-overs, he also explains to his readers (mainly tech industry executives and startup entrepreneurs) why it all matters:

Quote:

“We are learning that hostile takeovers have arrived in our industry. This is the second major hostile takeover so far — the other was Oracle’s takeover of Peoplesoft — but there will be more. This is significant because historically hostile takeovers practically never happened in technology. Potential hostile acquirors assumed that hostile takeovers wouldn’t work because the target company’s employees would bail and the target company’s business would collapse.”

One of the best days on the blogosphere was the day Marc Andreessen decided to start blogging.

If you haven’t noticed how FolioMag.com has embraced blogging with a vengeance (since Dylan Stableford’s return), it’s time for you to check it out. If you’re in the magazine industry — especially in B-to-B — they’re showing how it’s done. Indeed, today, they proved just how blogistic they are by using a post to bust a competitor’s lame attempt at gathering some competitive intelligence using the old (and I mean old), “we have a client who’d like to know so-and-so” approach. No, the calling-out wasn’t hip-hop magazine level. It was a little more like Michael Arrington on Twitter very late at night.

Thanks to those who e-mailed me on Sunday to let me know this blog was off line. It happened as one of those unintended glitches that occur when you de-glitch something else. Fortunately, the glitch only affected my blog and some other items sitting on a server that hosts nothing commercial or business-related.

Typically, I would have noticed the site being down, but I was busy all weekend actively enjoying the glorious weather here in Nashville. Checking in with Twitter last night, I discovered there must have been some problems there also this weekend, as some of my friends who are heavy-duty users of the service noticed some (and came up with a fix for) performance issues.

And then, this morning, the voice-over-IP phone system in our office is having some issues (as in, no one can call us, but we can call out).

The parade of glitches reminds me a bit of last week’s episode of Southpark called “Over Logging.” It is a spot-on satirical commentary on the creeping cultural dependence on the Internet that has developed over the past decade. (Warning: There is some very intense — and gross — adult-related content in this episode — as there is in every episode of South Park.) There is much in the show that holds up a mirror to those of us who have forgotten what it was like in the old-days before, say, 1996.

Spoiler alert: The way in which the Internet is fixed is a classic geek-humor moment. And the plea at the end to not “over-log” the Internet is a clever jab at the faddish way in which some people treat “being green.”

It’s Monday. I’m back online. The Internet is working again.

Lost photos: I shot this photo from
my office window last April.
Unfortunately, I can’t locate the photos shot
from the same location on April 16, 1998.

My first ever accidental online “citizen journalism” (before the term existed) experience occurred ten years ago, today. Unfortunately, because of the ephemeral nature of the web and certain “wish we knew then what we know now” practices, there is no place for me to point to what I did on that day.

Today, posting “weather photos” is one of those participatory “user-generated-content” activities that even the most up-tight control-freak media company encourages. In the past week or so, I’ve been emailed by at least two big brand online services requesting that I join their network of weather watchers due to my practice of posting photos of weather outside my office window on the 7th floor of a building near Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Ten years ago today, Will Weaver (then an employee at Hammock, now the big-guy — literally and figuratively — at the e-mail marketing company, emma) and I did a rather remarkably dumb thing. We had an early digital camera and decided to take photos of a tornado that was heading straight towards our building.

All the smart employees (everyone but the two of us) headed to the core of our office building, but we were thinking how great it would be to take some photos and post them on the Hammock.com website. That was a rather out-of-the-box idea as the site was your basic brochure site at the time. Not like today where not only do we have several work-related blogs on the site, but every employee also has a “people page” where they can post information they’d like to share.

Back then, Will and I shot a series of photos (actually, I think Will was “shooting” and I was “photo directing”) of what turned out to be the tornado passing by our office as it touched down in Centennial Park on its way to hitting downtown (including the stadium, then under construction) before doing major widespread damage in East Nashville. (Today, the Nashville Tennessean has a retrospective of the days events.)

After the tornado passed our office building, Will and I and a few other Hammock employees jumped in a car and (I don’t recommend this to anyone — indeed, do not ever do this) drove out to survey the damage in the area immediately surrounding our office. A few blocks from our office, we came-upon what turned out to be one of the most tragic events related to that day. As we watched, a large team of Nashville emergency service and fire department personnel were attempting to save a Vanderbilt student who was pinned beneath a tree in Centennial Park. Unfortunately, the student died later.

When we returned to the office, Will posted the photos at the URL (which no longer works) hammock.com/tornado. Within an hour, CNN.com and other news services were pointing to the photos and the site, which perhaps on a good day got 100 visitors, was (thanks to a robust server) getting tens of thousands of viewers. Sometime during the night, a radio talk show host I had never heard of until then, Art Bell, linked to the photos and started talking about them on his show. (Later I learned that visiting aliens and bad weather were a staple of his show.) The link from Art Bell ended up crashing our servers, as I recall.

Several years ago, we discovered that we had “lost” those photos and any archive of what the site was like on that day. I haven’t actually given up on them turning up somewhere, but searches of the WayBackMachine and other services have not turned up any mirror sites that captured the photos.

One of the reasons I now am obsessed with backing up and organizing digital media — and displaying it on multiple platforms — is my disappointment in having lost that April 16, 1998 moment in time — as experienced by a few of us.

Today, Hammock Inc. would have the photos uploaded to Flickr.com/hammock and YouTube.com/hammockinc instantly and the photos would be backed up on three different servers in our offices and off-site. And, oh yeah, they’d also be posted on that “Out My Office Window” Flickr set. Additionally, we would grant rights to anyone wanting to display the photos for news-coverage purposes.

We’ve come a long way in the past ten years. Today, the city of Nashville has a network of siren alarms that warn people of weather emergencies. Vanderbilt students can be contacted immediately via text message during any type of emergency. And today, the notion of individual witnesses of an event providing personal coverage directly to an audience, and not mediated by a professional news operation, is accepted as a norm — and even “covered” by traditional media.

Later: Laura Creekmore, who then and now lived in East Nashville, recalls the day’s event (she was one of the smart people who went to our building’s basement). I spoke today also with Will Weaver whose recollection is similar to mine. If Lewis Pennock or others are reading this, please comment to fill-in-the-blanks of any details from that day.