Tell us a little about yourself and your background.
I grew up in New York City but discovered both journalism and the Internet on the West Coast as a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism in the early 1990s. After J-school, I worked as a newspaper reporter for a year before moving to the Web. In the intervening years, I’ve held many Web jobs at many companies, from startups to established corporations. Highlights include being editor of Wired Digital’s Webmonkey, having a front-row seat at Excite from before the site launched to its stratospheric rise, sitting on the South By Southwest Interactive conference’s advisory board and building several community content publishing systems from scratch.
I have written for the San Francisco Chronicle, The Oakland Tribune and the Austin-American Statesman, as well as many Web sites including CNET, and have aired stories on public radio. I’m a self-avowed news junkie who is ever fascinated by how information technology continues to change and change our world.
You are joining the BlogBurst team as things are really starting to pick up steam. What are your impressions about the product/service and what interested you about working for BlogBurst?
BlogBurst is a terrific product and I couldn’t be happier about joining the team. This is a fascinating time to be in this business as media outlets and bloggers (not to mention the general public) accept the blogosphere as a legitimate part of the discussion and we all get to invent where it goes from here.
What experience from your previous jobs/positions and talents are you hoping to share and/or use for BlogBurst?
I’ve seen trends come and go, but experience tells me that content is always king. Focusing on the quality of the content, and the context that it is placed in, will always be a winner.
As a member of the editorial services team working to integrate a New Media product into traditional media sites, what do you see as your biggest challenges? Or, how do you think traditional publishers can best benefit from a content source like BlogBurst?
Technology is changing all media so quickly that it is always a challenge to keep perspective and see the big picture: how is our industry changing and where do we fit in? Who is doing something new that we should look at? Has the competition changed?
What blogs do you read? Or, what are your favorite blogs?
I try to find new blogs all the time, but I regularly read the Becker-Posner Blog, Tree Hugger (I’m interested in new vehicle technologies), Junk Charts and a collection of political blogs from all parts of the spectrum.
Welcome Tim!