I don't really do much social anymore beyond LinkedIn, but wanted to repost here what I wrote there:
"Thirty years ago today, someone pushed a button and launched washingtonpost.com into the world. I wasn't the guy who pushed the button, and I honestly remember almost nothing about the launch since we'd all been up for about 48 hours straight. But I remain incredibly proud of being on that launch team and helping put The Washington Post online. It was especially fitting since I -- like so many of my generation -- was lured into this business by "All the President's Men."
Those early days remain the most memorable of my career. We had only a vague idea of what we were doing, and the good news was that when we screwed up, no one seemed to care anyway.
Less than a month after launch, we had the tragic crash of TWA 800. The only people in the newsroom when the crash happened were the sports guys -- me and Gagan Nirula. And there was no remote publishing yet. Everyone had to drive into the office when news happened. So, for an hour, keeping the site updated relied on the judgment of the sports guys. This may very well have increased the speed of all senior editor cars headed to Arlington. But, as they always do, the sports guys did just fine.
In those days, we were working in raw HTML code -- the acronym CMS didn't yet exist. And we would sometimes accidentally delete a character from the code and the whole home page would just go blank. We'd spend 20 minutes trying to find our mistake, and no one from the print newsroom called and no one from the public complained. But we kept learning and kept churning and the audience eventually showed up and grew exponentially. And -- if I may say so myself -- over time, we created one hell of a great and innovative website.
It was very special to celebrate the anniversary of the launch with 150 former colleagues last weekend in Arlington. I worked with such incredible people at washingtonpost.com -- both in those early days and when I came back as executive editor in 2004 -- and that group has gone on to do amazing things all over the industry. There were a lot of memories shared last Saturday night and new ones created. (And it didn't hurt that the party ended with my Knicks winning an NBA title).
Anyway, below is the launch page from June 19, 1996. And before some young'un asks why there's only one photo on the page, read up on "33.6 baud." I've also always wondered how Kent Mercker feels about being the only person pictured on the launch page -- if he even knows. It wasn't his best night on the mound, but seems like it'd still be pretty cool to be the answer to that trivia question.
To all my former colleagues, happy 30th!"
"Thirty years ago today, someone pushed a button and launched washingtonpost.com into the world. I wasn't the guy who pushed the button, and I honestly remember almost nothing about the launch since we'd all been up for about 48 hours straight. But I remain incredibly proud of being on that launch team and helping put The Washington Post online. It was especially fitting since I -- like so many of my generation -- was lured into this business by "All the President's Men."
Those early days remain the most memorable of my career. We had only a vague idea of what we were doing, and the good news was that when we screwed up, no one seemed to care anyway.
Less than a month after launch, we had the tragic crash of TWA 800. The only people in the newsroom when the crash happened were the sports guys -- me and Gagan Nirula. And there was no remote publishing yet. Everyone had to drive into the office when news happened. So, for an hour, keeping the site updated relied on the judgment of the sports guys. This may very well have increased the speed of all senior editor cars headed to Arlington. But, as they always do, the sports guys did just fine.
In those days, we were working in raw HTML code -- the acronym CMS didn't yet exist. And we would sometimes accidentally delete a character from the code and the whole home page would just go blank. We'd spend 20 minutes trying to find our mistake, and no one from the print newsroom called and no one from the public complained. But we kept learning and kept churning and the audience eventually showed up and grew exponentially. And -- if I may say so myself -- over time, we created one hell of a great and innovative website.
It was very special to celebrate the anniversary of the launch with 150 former colleagues last weekend in Arlington. I worked with such incredible people at washingtonpost.com -- both in those early days and when I came back as executive editor in 2004 -- and that group has gone on to do amazing things all over the industry. There were a lot of memories shared last Saturday night and new ones created. (And it didn't hurt that the party ended with my Knicks winning an NBA title).
Anyway, below is the launch page from June 19, 1996. And before some young'un asks why there's only one photo on the page, read up on "33.6 baud." I've also always wondered how Kent Mercker feels about being the only person pictured on the launch page -- if he even knows. It wasn't his best night on the mound, but seems like it'd still be pretty cool to be the answer to that trivia question.
To all my former colleagues, happy 30th!"
