Jen Garrett reads it for the articles.

Yet again we are packing up and getting rid of stuff. We're going to arrive at our new place next week and it's going to be empty. Now I wish I still had that aerobed.

Ev pointed out A Conversation with Wayne Rosing. I spoke to Wayne before getting an offer from Google and after reading this interview, I'm even more psyched to get out there.

I gotta get me a custom hoodie that says "Genius Labs." Medium brown Skii with white type. All in good time.

An unexpected feature of Amazon's new complete text search is that you can now generate a portfolio of book cover designs on the fly. (Search books for "design by Biz Stone" to see covers I've designed.) Yes, the service is limited and only some covers show up. But still, this is really cool. If anyone wants to work with Amazon Web Services and Genius Labs to build a site that serves the book cover design community, email me! That would be fun.

Biz's Audio Blog Test Blog. Nice!

New York was great. Lunch at Tamarind and dinner at Punch (both right downstairs from the Flatiron) plus I got to visit with friends. Then I came right back to Boston in time for the first day of Wellesley’s Alumnae Leadership Council where I taught some blogging workshops (and was offered cash tips when I helped alums with their luggage). I’m beat. Now I just have to pack up my apartment and drive across the USA next weekend. Oh yeah, and write my book. I also found an apartment in San Francisco so now I have an arrival destination.

I'm off to NYC bright and early tomorrow morning to have lunch with my editor, meet with friends, and of course perform the usual secret Genius Labs undercover missions involving varying degrees of danger and intrigue. Its just like old times.

Defining Google.

I just found out via Ev that Google functions as a dictionary. So if you type in define dictionary, the first result is the definition. I will be using this a lot.

"You radiate the air of Love when you use the Mancatcher Voodoo Kit."

Menus from San Francisco Nice! I'm getting psyched (and hungry).

Tealuxe - Personal Journal. Tealuxe is a local tea house franchise here in New England and I just discovered that they are offering a form of tea blogging on their web site. Cool! It also looks like they've offered it since 1999.

I was in Barnes and Noble today and noticed my book is in its second printing. Nice! Also overheard this guy complaining to the staff about a Radio UserLand book, he couldn’t find it. I almost approached him but he seemed mean and crabby. Oh yeah, and here's two good books: Teach Yourself Movable Type (Molly!) and Google For Dummies (Google!).

RSS Stats would be cool. It'd be neat if I could see how many people have subscribed to my RSS feed.

New York Post Online Edition: business: "Technology workers are falling over themselves to get a foot in the door at Google, which is something of an anachronism - a high-flying dot-com that has yet to go public." Nice! I'm already in and I was told there will be free snacks. Free snacks rock.

This piece against blogging is funny and has some good stuff, especially chapter six - acceptable uses of weblogs.

I can’t update my bank card info with Earthlink because I don’t have my password and I can’t get my password without verifying the bank card number I have on file. The bank card I have on file is the one I am trying to replace. I don’t have that card anymore because my bank was acquired this summer and the new bank gave me a different number. Do I seem like the type of person that keeps records of inactive bank card numbers? I anticipate a shutting off of email in the near future. Good riddance.

Somebody should create a bookmarklet that enables “user defined permalinks.” They’d be perfect for linking to specific sections of text in a long web article. So the hyperlink would open the web page and then bump down to the assigned text. It would be just like when you do Ctrl+F to find specific text on a web page except that part would be predetermined by the person who created the link. Also, the text would be highlighted. Bonus! Can this be done? Maybe somebody already did it.

I’m working on this blogging book for SMP and I’m really loving it when I can actually settle in and write. There are so many distractions. I’ve got workshops at a conference at Wellesley coming up, I’ve got to go meet my editor for lunch in NYC, I need to find an apartment in San Francisco for November 1st, pack and leave Wellesley, drive cross-country with two cats and one other human, start working at Google, and do all the thousands of other things that need to get done. Note to self: don’t forget to feed sister’s cats tonight. (Good thing I read my own blog.) Go PawSox!

Earl Grey Hot: "A chronicle of my tea-drinking explorations beyond the world of Earl Grey (hot)." Geeking out with tea. Nice.

Are Paul, Greg, and Vinny on the set of Las Vegas or are have Genius Labs undercover agents secretly photographed them taking a meeting about undisclosed future events? Or is it both? Only time will tell my friend, but one this is for certain: it’s vintage.

I stayed home from work today to write. My workspace is set up so badly that it actually hurts to write my book. My back is killing me. I sit on a folding wooden chair at a rickety wooden table reclaimed from the dump and the space that's not being used by iBook is covered with books, printouts, wires, and what is this? A key to Joy's 1992 Geo. Why do I have this? Ow. My back.

So I'm leaving Wellesley College this month to start my new job at Google/Blogger and I just know that I'm going to go see Mona Lisa Smile in San Francisco and get homesick for lake Waban. I'll have to jog around it today. I am confident, however, that the blogging initiative will continue at Wellesley.

Google CEO speaks: "Google has a rigorous hiring system to draw in people with these sorts of traits, from passion to a perspective of limitless boundaries."

Google Acquires Genius Labs

Biz Stone joins Blogger team: There goes the blogosphere

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Oct. 7, 2003 - Google Inc. has acquired the entire staff and some of the intellectual property of Genius Labs, a Boston-based blogging entity comprised entirely of Biz Stone. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“I’m sure it’s going to mean a whole new level of greatness for Blogger, Google, and, well, let’s not kid ourselves, the world,” said Evan Williams, co-founder of Blogger.

Biz Stone was part of the founding group of the weblog community Xanga, he went on to write Blogging for New Riders, and he is working on a new, non-technical book about blogging for St. Martin’s Press. Biz will soon be taking up residence in San Francisco.

About Google
Google’s free snack and coffee program has drawn accolades from industry elite and their innovative search technologies are also very nice. Larry Page and Sergey Brin have made arrangements for Biz to be provided with at least one decent vegan meal per day (and beer on Friday). For more information, visit www.google.com.

Me and Jen at BloggerCon.

How about this for a futuristic Rubik's Cube: a new digital ink version of the cube with a USB port for downloading new pictures and patterns to solve. Nice! Genius Labs gets royalties.

On the way to work today I thought about the death of the blogosphere. The hyperlink and associated text contributes in a large part to the perceived emergent intelligence of the blogosphere because it reduces complex decisions into a simple click more akin to the simple individual choices that power a decentralized emergent intelligence like an ant colony. Bob Doyle talks about audio and video blogging but I think he means the spirit of blogging that Dave Winer sometimes mentions. Will video blogging kill the blogosphere because it is too nuanced? On the other hand, if video blogging is born from users figuring out the fast easy way to vblog from cell phones as a way to enhance or annotate their social circles, that could be different. As long as their are still links.

I had an idea today on my way to BloggerCon that has nothing to do with blogs. The idea behind Listerine pocket paks could be extended to Advil or other medicine. You could take it around with you and it wouldn't make that rattling noise--and you don't need a glass of water so you could take it whenever. Also, you could throw some breath freshener in while you're at it. Nice! I'm medical bio-tech consultant, send me checks! PS: Jen Garrett was with me and added that you could make caffinated breath strips.

A Whole Lotta Features: "...if you've ever wanted to write a topic-focused blog and wondered if you could get paid for it, Adsense could make it all work for you." Matt is making thousands of dollars with adsense on his topic-focused blog. Awesome!

The Blogging Iceberg

Just got back from BloggerCon. Gotta digest and go back again tomorrow. Good stuff, but I'm tired. Great job Wendy!

The way Anil does his daily links sideblog is very cool. I mean, the way the link itself is his commentary and there's no extra words. It's such a succinct form of blogging. I think I'll name it "Hyperblogging" and put it in my next book. Nice! I have named something that somebody else already does and therefore somehow get credit.

Put Newsfeeds On Your Website: "Ever wonder what to do with those strange RSS newsfeeds that all these bloggers have nowadays? Feedsplitter takes RSS newsfeeds and converts them into Javascript so that you can use a tag to include them in your webpages."

The Second Annual Blogger Boobie-Thon for Breast Cancer: "The charity drive that gives you a little somethin' in return..."

"Will easy and inexpensive publishing technology change the face of politics, business, journalism, the law, medicine, engineering and education? Is a revolution underway, or are weblogs just the latest Internet craze?" Will Biz Stone somehow use blogging to influence the minds of millions in the future? Has he already secretly started? We hope to discover these things and more this weekend at the Harvard hosted BloggerCon.

Sickcandy has a big Friendster scoop: "Jonathan Abrams, founder and CEO of Friendster has been down in LA pitching his web site as a concept for a reality show."

Craig Newmark's Blog: "Craig from craigslist.org gets to pontificate a little."

Moby Tour Diary Updates: "I'm almost tempted to go onto kazaa and download some of my own music, just to see if the RIAA would sue me for having mp3's of my own songs on my hard-drive."