GiGi Downs’ Post

So many lovely tributes to an absolute giant in so many senses Om Malik https://lnkd.in/e3iPwqxC I was just telling someone about the old days, when I got my real start, at AOL HQ in Dulles, VA: running around CC1 in pencil skirts and heels; giving "feedback" to AKQA and Agency dot com on how to do design for our sprawling network specials; spying on the sports team because apparently they were building a thing called a podcasting studio somewhere in CC2; making game-day decisions on whether to put a message board or a chat room on every breaking new story because these colliding concepts of online community and citizen journalism were changing news, media, and entertainment. In my downtime and between those hella commutes up and down the 66, I pored over everything published in GigaOm. I didn't think of it as tech journalism, and I didn't think of myself as working in tech, but I was on a steady diet of Rafat Ali's Paid Content, Kara Swisher's "There Must be a Pony," Clay Shirky's missives, Scoblizer, and probably a bit of Pink is the New Blog for good measure. A lot has been said about the fawning and idolatry of early tech reporting and blogging but something about going to Om's writing and all of his headlines that topped my RSS feed felt trustworthy, sober. There was always a perspective put in context, and an intangible knowing that we were all witnessing and loosely part of something that was bigger than the rest of the world seemed to know about. Most of these voices put their pens down and went into VC, applied their insights in other ways, but I'm sure in so many minds like mine, the story of tech and the Internet, Webs 1, 2, and 3, was shaped by the way that Om in particular saw it all -- with caution, care, and hope for the future.