This is a visual snapshot into the kinds of blog-based publishing projects I design, build, and often, host. One got 2,500 hits in its first 48 hours online. Another was the top link on Sarah Palin’s wikipedia entry at the time she was announced as a vice presidential candidate. An Argentinian warblog has been published as a book. Others get very little traffic, because they are e-books, experimental hypertextual essays, or art projects I’m committed to maintaining as part of our common online Library of Everything. Others are simply labors of love, my own contribution to the “real.”
Not too long ago, someone asked me to predict where interactive media and the Internet would be five years from now. I refused to give an answer, because I don’t get to decide. The beauty of a grassroots, bottom-up social movement like in the Blogosphere is that the social structures provide an organic kind of direction and structure, and the social structure is the authority, not “industry leaders” or “futurists” or any other professional prognosticators striving for control or a first-mover advantage.
Interactivity is about giving up control.
What I strive to do as a designer and a participant in this grassroots social movement is to create tools that empower the most people with enough freedom to set their own directions. I’m not interested in herding cats. I am interested in watching and learning inductively from where cats go.
 Atlanta Media Bloggers (launched 2006, now dormant)Original artwork by Denny Lester. Link: www.serendipit-e.com/mediabloggers |
 Weston Productions News site (launched 2004, now dormant) Link: www.serendipit-e.com/weston |
 Spinning and Being Spun: The idea of journalism in a postmodern age (launched 2005, now dormant)Link: www.serendipit-e.com/spinning |
 Serendipit-e, Inc. Communities and Tools for Active Learners(launched 2000 in HTML, relaunched Typepad 2003, now dormant) Link: www.serendipit-e.com |
 my cnn: employee news intranet blog + alerts moblog(in development 2006, now dormant). no public access |
 my cnn: employee news alerts moblog(in development 2006, now dormant). no public access |
 A Bluestem Prairie: News from Minnesota’s First Congressional District (launched 2006, now one of most influential blogs in Minnesota) Link: www.bluestemprairie.com |
 Traveling with Crows(launched 2006) Link: www.serendipit-e.com/traveling_with_crows |
 Memorial blog for Dr. Susan Barnes (launched 2006)2,500 hits in 1st 48 hours online, following global time zones starting in NZ/Australia within hours of launch Link: www.serendipit-e.com/drsusanbarnes |
 Memorial blog for James Tillotson Whitehead (launched 2003, featured as virtual memorial to accompany academic conference memorials) Link: www.serendipit-e.com/whitehead |
 Joshua Kucera: Freelance Writer and Int’l Journalist(launched 2003 as The Other Side) Link: www.joshuakucera.net/ |
 Hilltown Farmland Preservation: Information and Discussion about Farmland Preservation in Hilltown Township, PA (launched 2006) Link: www.hilltownfarmlandpreservation.org |
 Serendipit-e, Inc. Research Archive & Portfolio (launched 2003) Link: www.serendipit-e.com/boeseportfolio |
 Chris Boese’s Weblog (launched 2002)Link: www.serendipit-e.com/blog |
 Headpiece Filled With Straw (poetry journal)Link: www.serendipit-e.com/hollow |
 Darkroom Glories Poetry ManuscriptLink: www.serendipit-e.com/poems |
 Project Wet and Wild (award-winning hypertext essay)Link: www.serendipit-e.com/wetwild |
 are you with me, dr. wu? (steely dan/jazz fan blog)Link: www.serendipit-e.com/wu |