John Gruber
Really Specific Stories
Reflections on Writing and Influence
This chapter explores the speaker's writing journey, including their proudest achievements and the volume of words produced over their career. It reflects on the significance of initial steps in writing, the evolution of Markdown, and the enduring impact of creativity amidst the transient nature of content.
John shares his personal narrative as the writer of Daring Fireball and host of The Talk Show with John Gruber, which is now both a podcast and a live show with Apple executives, held during the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. In the conversation, John explains what first captivated him about computers at an early age, expands on his passion for reading and writing and outlines how he has carved out a life of independent production and commentary, based on his technological interests. Last, he describes what he’s most proud of.
Podcast case study: The Talk Show with John Gruber (producer)
Find John at Daring Fireball.
Read a transcript of the episode as a styled PDF or in plain text.
Links and Show Notes
The Director’s Commentary 00:00:00
- The Talk Show by John Gruber and Dan Benjamin was hosted on a different site, which can now be found in the Internet Archive.
- Dan Benjamin
- Hivelogic now redirects to the site above.
- Internet radio
- Daring Fireball
- iPod
- USB
- FireWire
- FM radio
- Apple Inc.
- iPhone
- Mac (computer)
- Substack
- Blue Microphones
- Amazon (company)
- MP3
- YouTube
- Blog (a truncation of ‘weblog’)
- Ad tech = online advertising technology
- Domain name
A Voracious Reader 00:10:12
I’ve Carved Out this Life 00:17:04
- Atari 2600
- Pong
- Word processor (electronic device)
- Typewriter
- Liquid-crystal display (LCD)
- World Wide Web
- Dave Winer
- Jorn Barger
- Robot Wisdom was Jorn’s early blog, which can now be found in the Internet Archive.
- Robot Wisdom and How Jorn Barger Invented Blogging
- Usenet
- TidBITS
- HyperCard
- Mailing list
- Jason Kottke
- Macworld
- Browse an extensive library of MacUser PDF magazines at vintageapple.org.
- The Philadelphia Inquirer
- Pulitzer Prize
- The New York Times
- The Washington Post
- Center City, Philadelphia
- The Talk Show with John Gruber
Freely Honest 00:38:04
- Zoom (software)
- Skype
- COVID-19 pandemic
- iOS
- Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC)
- Daring Fireball on YouTube, featuring videos of John’s annual The Talk Show Live events with Apple executives
- Mimi Sheraton
- Remembering Mimi Sheraton, Innovative New York Times Food Critic (John’s mentioned article on Daring Fireball)
- Android (operating system)
- Walled garden (technology)
A Loose, Unofficial Community 00:52:29
- RSS
- Twitter (rebranding to X at the time of this podcast episode’s publication)
- Content management system (CMS)
- John’s three mentioned Twitter/X alternatives and his accounts on each one
- TikTok
- Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
A Vision for the Whole Internet 01:00:52
- Spotify
- Joe Rogan
- Bill Simmons
- Ghost (blogging platform)
- Marco Arment
- Castro
- Application programming interface (API)
- News aggregator
- XML
- Paywall
- Dithering
- Ben Thompson
- Bob Dylan
- It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (the song with the lyrics that John quoted)
- Banner ad
- YouTuber
- Patreon
Pretty Proud of That 01:18:00
- John’s full searchable archive at Daring Fireball
- Markdown
- A few articles about Apple’s Brushed Metal user interface
- Aqua (user interface) on Wikipedia, with mentions of Brushed Metal throughout the article
- Brushed Metal and the HIG on Daring Fireball
- The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme on Daring Fireball
- The Brushed Metal Diaries: An Introduction, a Trojan Horse and a History of Abuse on 512 Pixels
Credits
Recorded and edited by Martin Feld, using Audio Hijack and Ferrite Recording Studio
Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion
Contact
- Website: rsspod.net
- Email: martin@loungeruminator.net
- Mastodon: social.lol/@martinfeld
- Micro.blog: micro.blog/martinfeld
A Special Note
Martin is a paying subscriber of John’s shared membership program for Dithering; this did not influence any of the questions that were asked and did not place any expectations on John as a participant of this academic podcasting project.
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