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)
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
MP3
- Audio data compression
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
- scripting.com
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
- kottke.org
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)
- @gruber
- @daringfireball
Content management system (CMS)
Reddit
John’s three mentioned Twitter/X alternatives and his accounts on each one
TikTok
Facebook
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)

A Vision for the Whole Internet 01:00:52

Spotify
Joe Rogan
Bill Simmons
- The Ringer
Ghost (blogging platform)
Marco Arment
- Overcast
Castro
Application programming interface (API)
News aggregator
- NetNewsWire
- Reeder
XML
Paywall
Dithering
Ben Thompson
- Stratechery
Bob Dylan
- It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) (the song with the lyrics that John quoted)
Banner ad
YouTuber
Patreon
Google

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

Martin’s edit in Ferrite

Original podcast theme music by Alex Canion

Contact

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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