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Blogging guru stops, for a while, in Seattle

By Kristi Heim
Seattle Times business reporter

Dave Winer wants to organize Seattle bloggers.

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Web-log pioneer Dave Winer walked in on a meeting of Seattle bloggers last week, a bit like William Shatner breezing in on a "Star Trek" convention.

In the parallel universe known as the Blogosphere, Winer is captain.

He has developed the tools and the art of blogging, as founder of UserLand Software and creator of the Scripting News blog, the Internet's longest-running blog.

Winer, 49, subjects thousands of loyal readers to his daily musings on technology, politics, other bloggers and, lately, his walks around downtown Seattle.

Yesterday, Scripting News was the 15th-most-popular blog on the Web with 5,820 other Web sites linking to it, according to blog-tracking service Technorati.

Winer has descended on Seattle as a kind of experiment.

After finishing a yearlong fellowship at Harvard, where he launched a Web-log community and held two blogger conferences, Winer has moved here temporarily and wants to organize fellow bloggers here.

He thinks bloggers can help increase awareness of political issues and participation in democracy.

"Washington state is at an interesting place as far as blogging is concerned," he said. "It's at a time when it would be something to see and something to participate in, and in my own way to help further if I can."

At the Belltown Ralph's grocery store, which provides free wireless Internet access, about 25 people gathered last week for a monthly bloggers meeting.
 
Winer arrived looking like Jerry Garcia in a T-shirt, jeans and a blue rain slicker. Many people didn't recognize him until they heard his name.

Local blogger Scott Koon used his blog to post a list of Seattle survival tips for Winer, including advice to stay away from the Eastside and how to pronounce "Puyallup."

Natasha Chart, 29, said Winer may be on to something. Chart covered the Democratic National Convention on her blog Pacific Views and has conducted interviews with local candidates for the site.

"A lot of the problems we have in our country and around the world today you can blame on politicians, but you also have to blame the public and the electorate — people who aren't paying attention and media who aren't covering stories," she said. "Anything to get people more involved is wonderful."