Genesis

Before I started thinking about reinventing local news, I started blogging, at the behest of my pal Dan Michalski.

After a while, I started seeing an alternate future for news, although the best way I knew to express it at the time was an idea for a Fletch-meets-Blade Runner novel about a future in which there were no traditional newspapers, but instead hordes of freelance independent journalists fighting for pennies in pageviews.

Chris Nolan has inadvertently saved the world from my not-so-great American novel.

Comments

[Dan M.]

gee mike, and i thought blogging was just a way for all of us to avoid doing real work. who knew we'd become students of a pseudorevolution?

[Dan M.]

by the way, i notice you're using trackbacks. are they really worth the hassle, in your opinion? or are they a nifty blog gadget that will be looked at with nostalgia a few years from now? what's the benefit (in practical terms) to Peg (and Peg's readers)?

[Mike Orren]

I like trackbacks -- worth the hassle is another question. Very cool to see who's linking to you, and some of the better cross-blog conversations I've had started via a trackback. See this thread: This guy saw me talking about him via my trackback, so added my points to his original post. Trackbacks incite conversation.

I look at 'em as a comment to someone else's blog that you post on your own blog.

If the trackback was automatic, would be perfect. I'll confess that when I'm lazy, I don't always trackback.