The effervescent Ben Hammersley argues that Richard Steele was the first blogger, publishing his first post was on April 12, 1709. He postsed three times a week, ran comments, had 800 readers, and drank lots of coffee. “This guy is a blogger.”

Amateur publishing + coffee = Revolution, Ben says. When fashion no longer flagged status, and people were drinking coffee in coffee shops, getting more and more animated, you get conversations among equals. The Tatler then broadcast this cafe society to the hinterlands.

Ben’s equation: Normal person + Anonymity + Audience = Total fuckwad. “The new technology…is resisted because people don’t know how to use it within their social environment. They are afraid of humiliation.” Most people live in “the Hinterweb” (Danny O’Brien’s term) of “X10 popups, porn adware, and endless, endless Hotmail and Yahoo spam.” “New technology needs a new etiquette. This needs time.” Our mission, says Ben, is a new Tatler that will teach the people in the Hinternet “how to deal with each other in this new technological world that we’ve already created.” If we don’t teach them that, they will destroy the new world because “there are more of them than there are of us.” He adds that he doesn’t mean “teach” so much as show.

[The talk was too entertaining to blog well. So I’ve over-simplifyied badly. Sorry.]

Categories: Uncategorized dw