evhead resigns blogger

October 4, 2004 8:19 PM

best of luck, ev. after over five years of sweat and tears, founder evan williams decides to hang up the reigns on his position at blogger. undoubtedly, he's done a lot for the blogging community and the internet in general.. we wish him well.
posted by mrplab (18 comments total)

and more, from the official blogger website:

"I would have never dreamed the blogging phenomenon and Blogger would reach the height it has. I mean, "blogs" was a category on Jeopardy the other night! Can you believe it? But now, I think I can safely say there's much more to come. These guys have so many cool things in the works, I can't wait to be a Blogger user in the next few months."
posted by mrplab at 8:23 PM on October 4, 2004

Holy smoking servers batman that's slow.

Coral Cache link here.
posted by skallas at 8:32 PM on October 4, 2004

Evlovers, take note.
posted by brownpau at 8:58 PM on October 4, 2004

I can only say thanks in an extremely loud voice after using Blogger for the last 3.5 years and reading thousands of other bloggers.
posted by billsaysthis at 9:03 PM on October 4, 2004

Generally, people who found companies aren't the best people to run those companies once mature. The wisdom of Ev recognizing that his time has come, hopefully before it became a true conflict, speaks well of him. It's unsurprising he's got the itch to start another: there's no small number of serial entrepreneurs.

It's been a long time since that day in 1999 when I tried out a brand new service called Blogger. (If I'm correct, besides insiders, only Dinah Sanders and Anil Dash preceded me.) Funny thing was, I had been looking at the product Pyra as an online organizer/project manager; the fact that they were working on Blogger undoubtedly factored into how I found them somehow, but I don't remember the details. I've got a lot to thank them for.

And I'm still waiting for Pyra to be released. ;-)

Good luck, Ev.
posted by dhartung at 9:14 PM on October 4, 2004

"Blogs" was a category on Jeopardy? Who in the what, now? What were the answers/questions?
posted by GaelFC at 9:21 PM on October 4, 2004

Stock options. Cashed.
posted by neuroshred at 9:24 PM on October 4, 2004

When was blogs a category on Jeopardy? I've watched it every night for the past two weeks. I did see websites as a category one night. One of the answers was Google, I think one was Drudge, and one was some government site. It was during the tournament of champions.
posted by iconomy at 9:26 PM on October 4, 2004

holy crap!
posted by tsarfan at 9:38 PM on October 4, 2004

Screenshots from the blog category on Jeopardy.
posted by teg at 10:11 PM on October 4, 2004

I'm thinking that the "Blogs" category was during the tournament as well. The $1000 (or $2000?) question was "Who is Margaret Cho?" The lowest-valued one was just about what the word stands for ("What is Web Log?"). Don't remember the others off the top of my head.
posted by ChrisTN at 10:14 PM on October 4, 2004

Ev and I locked horns on more than one occasion during the time I oversaw the business/strategic end of LiveJournal. The most divisive time was when Blogger was nominated for a Webby Award back in 2001, and LJ -- the upstart not-quite-ready-for-prime-time weblog app and choice of angsty teens -- challenged Blogger as a write-in candidate.

We were smaller than Blogger, but got the People's Choice award because of our community features which gave us an advantage on word-of-mouth. Ev and I met briefly at the Webbies. It was a big to-do in San Francisco's opera house back then, with Sam Donaldson and Alan Cumming as emcees... but it was also the dying days of the dotcom exuberance. Dotcom kids dressed up, schmoozing, with comp'ed champaigne, because someone with a lot more money was willing to pay for it all. Larry and Sergei from Google came in for their award on roller skates and flapping cloaks.

There would be no grand opera house in the coming years, as the dotcom era dried up, and unfortunately there were few kind words shared at the time. So, yeah, there was a rivalry, and even some hard feelings... but only because we all cared about what we were doing.

That said, look at the results of competition. You can get a weblog/journal for free nowadays from dozens of different sources, with software that is easy to interface with, that you can interface with numerous third-party applications, with code which is either open or highly modifiable more often than not, and syndication which is standard.

What started out as a bunch of kids competing over meaningless baubles as a matter of pride turned into a growing, interconnected, user-friendly, generous marketplace of ideas.

So, in the end, no single weblog application won the war. We all did.

Nicely played, Ev. (We should all do it again someday!)
posted by insomnia_lj at 10:24 PM on October 4, 2004

Wow, and I'd just been thinking that it's about half a year until the 5-year anniversary of my Blogger weblog. Ev has lead Blogger/Pyra well all these years while other dot coms have floundered. I second the big thanks, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

And insomnia, I've used LiveJournal for nearly as long, and I've always also been very impressed by it, even if populated by angsty teens, and by its leadership.
posted by halonine at 11:00 PM on October 4, 2004

I cite Evhead as inspiring me to start webwriting in my very first post, on Blogger, in 2001. For that reason alone, there are now thousands around the globe who want to see him nailed up somewhere. Good luck, and sorry about that, Ev!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:41 PM on October 4, 2004

"And insomnia, I've used LiveJournal for nearly as long, and I've always also been very impressed by it, even if populated by angsty teens..."

Weblogs aren't just for those on high to communicate to the masses. They're for everyone to communicate to anyone. They're also an incredible learning tool.

So no, there's absolutely nothing wrong with angsty teens. They're tomorrow's A-list webloggers in training...
posted by insomnia_lj at 1:36 AM on October 5, 2004

Is the same guy who makes that excellent kentucky bourbon? :-)
posted by nofundy at 5:08 AM on October 5, 2004

What. The. Fuck. Ev!?

Not sure if I'd have the balls to quit Google, myself ;-) It looks way too cool.
posted by wackybrit at 5:59 AM on October 5, 2004

Amen to the good wishes for Ev. I very much appreciate what he (and his team) created. Today, in fact, marks my 4-year "blogiversary," and I am grateful to Ev, Blogger, Pyra, Meg, Jason, etc, etc, etc, for creating what is, to many of us, more than a hobby, less than a career. Heh.

So long, Ev, and thanks for all the fish features!
posted by davidmsc at 8:32 PM on October 5, 2004