i swear, i don't work for Google
This has come up in [virtual] conversation a few times recently, so I figure I'd make this clear: I don't work for Google. I don't work for Technorati, either, or Flickr or the Mozilla Foundation. I have zero vested interest any of those companies. I simply like their products. A lot.
The
company I work for has four employees: three owners and me. You've never heard of us, and that suits us just fine—our clients have, and they're happy, and that's all that matters. We don't do sales; our business comes from word-of-mouth/referrals and has since the company was started almost a decade ago. God forbid we have to do sales. I think we'd go insane.
Our business has zippo, zilch, nada to do with blogs, blogging tools, search engines, or anything of that ilk. My interest in such things is purely my own. Although it is true that the only other companies I'd ever consider working for (as if one can actually be picky when one is decidedly
not a SuperStar) are Google, Yahoo! and eBay, I'd never make it through HR screening; my experience and skills don't fit any particular job description. But remember, I'm trying to segue
out of working in this industry. All I really want to do is teach comp at a community college somewhere [after going to school first, of course]. Go figure. But I digress.
So, you may ask, how do you write a book about Blogger if you don't work for them? Simple. You pitch it. In my case you pitch it, watch the editorial board at your publisher go "we don't think there's a market", whine about it, watch media coverage of blogs explode, pitch it again, have editorial board think it's a lovely idea, sign contract, write book. It's a Blogger-"sanctioned" book in that
Biz Stone reviewed the TOC on his own, and is writing a foreword, and (if the book doesn't suck) he'll say something about it on the Blogger site or
Blogger Buzz. But, they don't have any say in what I've written (suggestions for improvements in feature coverage not withstanding, which I
asked for) and my enthusiasm for and opinions about Blogger/Technorati/Flickr/Mozilla is all my own.
