Some farewells

Last year, it seemed there was an extraordinary number of endings in the blogosphere and podosphere. Many of my favourite podcasts ended, or cut back dramatically, over the past year and many bloggers did the same.

On December 31, another blog ended as fellow American expat in Auckland, Nik Dirga, announced the end to his Spatula Forum blog. Nik’s was a generalist blog, far more so than my own, exploring a large variety of subjects, and always with a far less, um, rant-y tone than mine. I found many great posts and links on his blog.

In his final post, Nik wrote, “many of these folks I've met thanks to this blog are great and not at all creepy”. Naturally, I like to place myself in the “not at all creepy” category, since Nik and I met in real life when he was a guest on my podcast (Episode 71). Because of that, I can attest that Nik is not at all creepy. Another person I’d add to this grouping is Roger Green, a frequent commentor here and a great blogger himself, who I probably never would’ve “met” if it hadn’t been for Nik’s blog.

So these things we create—blogs, podcasts, even Flicr accounts—can affect people far beyond what we can know or imagine. I find that kind of reassuring.

Thanks, Nik, for your blog, great interactions and the introductions.

And finally on the subject of blogs and endings, Joe.My.God noted the unexpected passing at age 41 of Brad Graham, the gay blogging pioneer who coined the term "blogosphere" in 1999.