My compliments to N.Z. Bear for his article in Salon. I remember the days of Atari and Apple and C64 owners having contempt for each other well. (I wasn't so much into the BBS scene however. I was in a regional Australian city where there wasn't very much of it, I suspect). Here we have something interesting, however: a non-professional journalist blogger puting something on his blog, getting a good reaction, and then selling it to a professional publication (although a net-connected one). This isn't entirely new: Dave Winer was writing for Wired in about 1994, but we are perhaps seeing the start of blogging as an entry to professional publication. It may not be so much whether people are noticing the bloggers (as Virginia Postrel and Glenn Reynolds have been discussing), as whether people are noticing the people who are noticing the people who are noticing the people who are noticing the people who are noticing the bloggers. The presence of a chain might be enough. When I see someone who started as a blogger writing for the Washington Post or the New Yorker, then I will be impressed, and I think it will happen. (The New York Times has its head in the sand, obviously). More on this after my exam tomorrow.