Rewind two years and change: April 5, 2007. I'm stuck in the Roanoke airport in Virginia. My Thursday night flight to San Francisco had to be pushed to morning, which meant I was going to be late for my interview at CNET the next day.
Rockstar human and HR person Hilary Straw called me every day trying to get me to come for that interview. When my flight finally landed, I rushed downtown to meet my soon-to-be boss (and her boss). I was terrified, but excited. Touring the building, I remember thinking, "Holy shit! They have video games here?!"
I immediately accepted the job when Arquay offered it to me. I had heard of CNET before, but my division would be called BNET-the business side.
Since then, it's been a pleasure walking up 2nd Street every day to come to work. It doesn't feel like work when you enjoy the people, the product, and the process of making new things. Over the past two-plus years, I've had the best job anyone could ask for right out of college. The folks here have taught me more than any classroom ever could. Watching a smaller company merge into a larger one has been a wild ride, but I'll always call this place CNET.
I want to commemorate the people who have made my life great for the past few years-from Robert Balousek welcoming me on day one, to the engineers, designers, writers, and leaders who shaped this place. There are countless names: John Potter, Zander, Neil Ashe, Marc Mendell, Alexis Gallisá, Joel B. Sacks, Vinay Dixit, McLovin, Scott Parsons, Neha Tiwari, Selvin George, Kenric, Josh, Moynihan, Tom, Veronica, Molly Wood, Rafe, Natali, Kara Tsuboi, Merlin Mann, Navarro Brooks, Leslie, Solis, Erica, William at the front desk, Jablonski, Christine, Katy, and so many more. Every one of them made a mark.
As a small gift, I'm transferring the domain name newmediaminded.com over to CBS Corp. I helped build that blog with Marc Mendell and Libby Bittner for the interns to share their stories, and I'm proud it will stay in good hands.
I have tons of Flickr photos from these adventures-backstage at CNET Redball, behind the scenes with Buzz Out Loud, and all sorts of random moments that made the journey special. I'll miss sitting next to Carl Harris, trading Southern stories, and getting backstage passes just for doing what we love.
Going forward, I'll be writing even more on The Web Life at ZDNet. Expect a post a day if I'm on point.
Oh, I almost forgot—where am I headed next? Promise you didn't just scroll down here first? Here's the only hint I'm giving: 寧.
The Web Life on ZDNet
I wrote a blog called The Web Life on ZDNet from 2008–2011, covering early social media, SF tech parties, and the open web movement. ZDNet still hosts these, but who knows for how long — so here they are, preserved:
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Hello World! Welcome to my world — the first post, July 2008. Twitter broke news of an LA earthquake before any newsroom could. The open web was just getting started.
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Follow Friday: Essential Webbies — May 2009. My picks for the best people to follow in the early Twitter era.
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Facebook open streams, takes down walled garden — April 2009. Facebook opening up felt like a big deal at the time.
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Ubercab: a step above the yellow taxi — an early review of what would become Uber, before anyone called it that. Black Mercedes, no cash exchange, 2-minute pickup. I was sold.
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Spotify and Facebook: The best personal and social music experience — Spotify was invite-only and felt like the future of music. I still think I was right.
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5 interesting points from Facebook's open identity guy — live coverage from FOWA 2010 in Miami. OAuth 2.0, PubSubHubBub, and a Python web server called Tornado. The plumbing of the web in real time.