Ah, Back in the Day...

Ten years ago today, Jason Chervokas pushed the send button and fired off the first issue of @NY to about 300 subscribers. As anniversaries go, this one isn't significant to many people besides Jason and me: we founded @NY that summer of 1995 to chronicle what we thought was a great story that needed to be told. The usually under-employed class of writers, designers, artists, photographers, editors - and their pals in sales - had created a tiny but fascinating new class of entrepreneur in New York City, leveraging the commercial dawn of the Internet browser to create a new medium. We came to the story during the preceeding year or so, attracted by art-based Websites, by email lists of interesting young people, and by the parties. The two of us were reporters covering the Bronx in those days (I was managing editor and he was political columnist for the Pulitzer-winning Riverdale Press) and we used our slight connections to hang out downtown amidst the tiny gaggle of pioneers who loved both the medium and the hip cooler-than-thou pose it allowed.

Within two years, our circulation of the weekly, plain text newsletter we'd invented - and its early blog-like Website - had grown to more than 100,000. Two years after that, we sold it: to empire-builder Alan Meckler, who has possessed one of the sharpest eyes in media technology for two decades. But in four years, Jason and I met some of the most fascinating people on the planet, and we built a network of personality that provides us with joy to this day. From the start, we believed strongly in the medium, but never in the bubble; we proudly boasted about "deflating the hype." Of course, we were poseurs too - I was profiled in Penthouse magazine, Jason was a CNBC regular for a while. We rode it. We hung at the parties. We did the junkets. And we learned a lot about finance, about management, about sales, about the increasingly interconnected nature of the planet. You can't buy that kind of education.

All along, the idea that user-created content - conversations - was the life's blood of the Internet guided our reportage. And that pose was clearly out best: tested by time, it has proven solid as a rock. @NY's legacy is a tiny one outside of a small circle of people. But it was entirely emblematic of its times, and, in retrospect, part of a the movement of citizens media we're all participating in now. Generally, anniversary articles aren't worth the writing, but this one's personal. Happy birthday @NY. I can't believe it's been a decade.

Comments

[Tom K]

Congrats, Tom. And let me retract my suggestion, some weeks back, of insularity on your part: clearly, you are connected to the heartland of American, and your delicate reading of its pluse tells you that @NY's 10th Anniversary, not the over-hyped events surrounding hurricane Katrina (which you have yet to mention), is the news of the day.

But seriously, congrats. The anniversary IS worth telling about; this is YOUR blog after all. But Mr. Heartland, turn your eyes west when you get a chance, eh?

[brendan]

wow, congratulations Tom and Jason - that's great.
But damn, time flies. 10 years!?!?! Outrageous!

[Brendan]

Ah I see Hurrican Kissana has blown into town.
The President of the United States has asked for a moment of your time to speak to you about the devastation wrought by Kissana:
My Fellow Americans,
terroristsandkillers911spreadingfreedom911threatlevel
magic911wandterrorkillerflipfloptaliban911freedomdemocracy
911scarybombsthreatWMDs911
ourstreetsandcities911911911911911.
Thank you.

[Gotham Gal]

10 years? Wow! You and Jason were more than journalists. You had the foresight to get out at the right time. I have always applauded those efforts. You built a great business that was ahead of its time. Meckler saw the opportunity and you were smart enough to take him up on it. Bravo! I consider myself one of the fortunate people that you got to meet both of you due to those wild times. Luckily, I still enjoy your musings daily.

[fred]

From the day you started till the day you left, I never missed reading it.

It was never as good after you two stopped writing it, but I still get it.

Can't unsubscribe.

Too much goodwill, thanks to you guys.

[mark]

Wow....

The best thing i've read in an age. I was deeply moved. I cry for our country, and the one we have deeply violated.

Mark

[bruce b.]

TW,

I too have fond memories of @NY. You guys had your fingers on the "pulse" and were always controversial... and more than a few times, right on the button and/or "ahead of the curve."

@NY was my original connection to the NY "Internet" industry. I was doing programming work at a client site in Morris County, NJ, but would read @NY every week and thus knew about Jack Hidary, DoubleClick, Fred Wilson and Jerry Colonna, Agency.com, and the entire cast of characters. You and Jason made more than a few stars and made helped make some people a whole lot of money.