I’ve been contemplating a blog entry for a while on this whole situation with the valley, the boom, TechCrunch, and my experience being in a startup somewhat outside of that insider world (though being quite fulfilled thank you). And, Lo, Mike Arrington finally breaks down and does it himself. This is really priceless. Ok, couple quick thoughts:

• If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem. No use boo-hooing. Rather than complain, let’s try and take a position of influence and put it toward building a brighter version of what this period of activity could look like. Why not feature other regional communities with interesting things going on (I recently had a great experience at Tech Cocktail, for example)? Why not stop leading with venture news?
• Chickens come home to roost. It is satisfying on some level, I admit, to see this coming from one of the chief architects (willingly or not) of this whole environment of late.
• This is not a new idea. Kudos to the folks who have been forever and consistently trying to keep everyone honest. The perennially observant and erudite Dave Winer, who I’d put in that camp, has something to say as well.

In any case, I won’t hem and haw about it, just wanted to drop in and say that this one bit of insider drama is much welcomed by those of us outside the fishbowl. Good show to Mike for at least saying how he feels. Now let’s see what he can do by channeling it in a positive direction — he certainly has the power, at least for now.

So what’s so cool about Twitter?

• It’s focused on only one very simple thing (always a great thing for a piece of software to be)
• It’s great for keeping in touch with friends in a way that requires almost no actual effort (always a roadblock)
• It’s nice to get a sense of folks’ you admire interesting ideas and goings on, without actually having to read their blog all the time, or convince them to be your real friend (except for the bloggers that twitter every post, which is super-lame).

Ok, what’s not as cool?

• It’s focused on only one very simple thing
• Um, it doesn’t always work so good (e.g. cats)

So, why does everyone still use it?

Alas, twitter has going for it the greatest asset available in our attention-limited techno world — stickiness. It was a cool idea originally, so props for that. Jaiku‘s a lot better now in terms of features, but who uses Jaiku, that you know? Everyone seems to agree it’s better, so why the F can’t we all just switch? I hereby call for Jaiku Day!

Sorry, just tired of the cats and wishing I could get my delicious links twittered.

Ok, so I’ve had a blog about 15 times over the last several years. The cycle goes something like this:

1. I decide it’s time to start blogging (again), so I set one up somewhere
2. I write vigorously for a few weeks, each post wittier and more compelling than the last
3. I realize that I have other stuff to do, so I start doing that other stuff, and blogging less
4. I get depressed about not being a real blogger and kill the install
5. I think of something I want to write about a few weeks later, but alas, have no vehicle

So, the great conclusion this time around is that I can set up a blog and, lo and behold, post something when I feel like it. Is anyone going to read it every day? No, but I’ll get some stuff out there for posterity and do my part to participate in the user-generated content revolution (isn’t that thing over yet?).

Hope it’s not a complete waste for you, humble reader.