From: Gleanings
To: Blogaholics
Subject: Gleanings: One Man Shows
OPENING THANG
Lessons, lessons. Everyday I learn I don’t live in Jakob Nielsen’s black and white world of ultimate pronouncements. Jeff Lash, from my new favorite site xblog, wrote to tell me that even though they own xblog.com, it’s not the right URL for their content. Their content is at xplane.com/xblog. I replied flippantly why don’t you slap a redirect on that puppy so xblog.com points at xplane.com/xblog. To which he sighed, and said… “Yes, you’re right. I’ll add it to the list of things to do. It’s list item
#257, right after “Finish reading ‘Unleashing the IdeaVirus'” and “Save
world.””
Xblog, like my own gleanings and eleganthack, are free personal crusades published by an individual on his/her own time. The blogger community has created a world of self-publishing that is producing (at least in my mind) some of the best content the web has seen since the heyday of the zines. Only too often self-publishers sigh like Jeff did, and say, yeah, I really been meaning to get around to redesigning, or yeah, I should register that domain (or in my case, gosh I only wish I had an editor). But what is important is that they keep publishing– Their packaging may not be slick, but it really is what’s inside that counts. Go to yahoo.com and look up any soft drink site
(http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Food_and_Drink/Drinks/Soft_Drinks/Brand_Names/ ),
and you’ll see quickly what no-content-pretty-packaging looks like. Then go visit these guys:
http://www.mersault.com/thinking/
http://www.jjg.net
http://www.peterme.com
http://www.tildeworks.com/design/
http://www.37signals.com/svn/
http://www.xplane.com/xblog/
http://a.jaundicedeye.com/weblog/
http://www.scottmccloud.com/
http://www.giantant.com/antenna/
http://www.hannahodge.com/blog/br_blog.html
http://www.tpodd.com
http://www.captaincursor.com/
http://www.sippey.com/
http://www.glassdog.com
http://www.powazek.com
http://www.fury.com/
http://www.metafilter.com/