Ed Note: one of Boingboing's three current guest bloggers, Steven Johnson is the author of six books, most recently The Invention Of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution and the Birth Of America. (You can see a video interview introducing the book here.) He's also the co-founder of the hyperlocal community site outside.in.
The two most common–and frustrating–complaints I hear about the web and the blogosphere are 1) that they're filled with mean-spirited snark; and 2) that they've been divided up into predictable, Daily Me filters where you're only told stuff you already know. I've been hearing this for years, and every time I hear it I respond by pointing people to the success of boingboing, which I think most of us would agree is as true to the core values of the web as anything out here. First, our hosts are so generous and open–and largely snark-free–in just about everything they post. The default tone is here is always: "Hey, check out this amazing thing I found." And those things are far more eclectic and diverse than anything you would have encountered in the heyday of big media. Only at boingboing could a guy post about Candy Land, aviation safety, Lost, and the Obama IT plan in one week and feel like he's the boring, predictable one. If this turns out to be what the DailyMe looks like, I think we're all going to be just fine.
So it was an honor and a complete blast to hang out here for the past two weeks. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured by any of my posts. I hope you'll get a chance to check out The Invention of Air, but either way I look forward to continuing the conversation here and elsewhere.
