I remember the first time I ever saw WIRED magazine – back when I was pirillc2770@cobra.uni.edu (in the early ’90s). It was pure literary awesomeness. Evan Hansen stumbled upon ‘freedbacking’ somehow, and wanted to know a little more about it. I’m still not sure the idea has legs, but I’ll have a super-simple Freedbacking.com set up some time after Gnomedex. From Are You ‘Freedbacking’?:

Tagging has already proven to be a powerful tool for organizing information on the web, and Pirillo’s twist of using a made-up word with no Google presence to jump-start a new category of conversation is an interesting idea. If enough people go along, Pirillo and others hope, the term could alert developers to feedback that just might make their products better.

Rock on. Evan and I talked about putting a word to there not being a word in Google. It’s not googlewhacking (which is when there’s only one result for a keyword or two). If the word doesn’t exist, and you’re trying to make it a word, shouldn’t it be something like a googlemology? I must note that, as of the time I’m writing this, the word “googlemology” is not showing up in Google. The story is becoming the story. Of course, that’s a googlification of the word “etymology.”

Wired on Wired

Confirmed Gnomedex Discussion Leader: Blake Ross. Which one of you founded the Firefox project with Dave Hyatt at age 17? Which one of you founded the SpreadFirefox initiative with Asa Dotzler? Which one of you was featured on the front cover of Wired magazine last year? Oh, and which one of you will be a Gnomedex discussion leader? Yeah, Blake Ross. By the way, “Firefox” is a new Web browser – but you’ve probably never heard of it before. The project was developed by a small, non-profit organization – and with any luck, Gnomedex will help boost interest in Firefox so that it can grow to be used by hundreds of users! I know it’ll be difficult to give up lynx…

Blake Ross