The Year in Review

It's been a very good year for Ben, me, Six Apart and weblogging as a whole. With the year's end, we have received a number of recognitions that we find particularly surreal because of their enormity and significance. When I look back at my first post on dollarshort.org, the weblog that got me into blogging, I can't even fathom how different our lives have become.

One recognition, the PC Magazine honor of "People of the Year" was not only jaw-droppingly exciting to receive, but also a nice reminder of the roots of weblogging. To be up there with Ev, Meg and PB made us realize that we've been doing this for quite some time and it's been a shared effort among a lot of people. If we are looking at people who shaped and helped weblogging mature, we should also include Dave Winer, Noah Grey, Tim O'Reilly for his early support and all those who had weblogs before they were even called blogs. To receive the same award that also has been given to people like Linus Torvalds, Jerry Yang and David Filo and Sergey Brin and Larry Page certainly blows us away.

While the award was given to five particular people, it should also be considered a shared award with webloggers. This certainly was the year that weblogging penetrated the mainstream. Blogging "grew up" with it being recognized as word of the year by Webster's Dictionary, mentioned on countless major media and tv outlets without explanation (including my favorite, The Daily Show). This was the same year that Time Magazine considered Bloggers as "people of the year" and had a category for blog of the year.

Another recognition we have received and will be honored with in February is the Demo 15 World-Class innovators. We were recognized "for making blogging accessible, affordable and powerful, giving a voice to tens of thousands of individuals." I'm proud of that description since we have always wanted to create the tools that could be considered not only a vehicle for personal voice, but also a powerful, usable way to communicate. We're humbled to be in the company of the other 14 innovators who join us on the Demo 15 -- people like Kai Krause, Dan Bricklin and Marc Andreessen.

Tomorrow we will be moving into our new offices in San Francisco. Last July, I toured our current 1400 square foot office in San Mateo and said "this should be enough room for a year." Almost 30 people later, we're ready to move into our new space. Not only will we have more room, but we'll finally be in a space that will be conducive to even more collaboration and bonding. Last Friday we had our Holiday party in which staff members were invited to bring their spouses and children. As Ben and I gave our speech thanking everyone for being part of the team, we realized how much we have truly grown. I have never known such a great crew of people to work with and I'm so grateful that they have made sacrifices to come and work at Six Apart. We build weblogging tools because we believe in the medium and our biggest inspiration is you, our users.

We look forward to a great 2005 and can only imagine that like 2004, will have its highs and lows. As far as New Year's resolutions we promise to be even more communicative with you. In return, we ask for your continued support and understanding that a growing company needs some room to make mistakes. We can not guarantee that we won't make any mistakes, but we will work our hardest to be the same company -- philosophically -- that Ben and I started over three years ago.

Thanks again!