John Gruber

Last updated

John Gruber
John Gruber, 2009 (cropped).jpg
John Gruber in 2009
Born1973 (age 50–51)
United States
Occupation Blogger, podcaster
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Education Drexel University (BS)
Subject Design, technology, Apple Inc.
Notable works Markdown, Daring Fireball, The Talk Show, Vesper
SpouseAmy Jane Gruber
Website
daringfireball.net
Books-aj.svg aj ashton 01.svg  Literatureportal

John Gruber (born 1973) is a technology blogger, UI designer, and co-creator [1] [2] of the Markdown markup language. Gruber authors the Apple enthusiast blog Daring Fireball and produces its accompanying podcast, The Talk Show.

Contents

History

Gruber is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Science in computer science from Drexel University, then worked for Bare Bones Software (2000–02) and Joyent (2005–06). [3]

In 2004, Aaron Swartz and Gruber worked together to create the Markdown language, [1] [2] with the goal of enabling people "to write using an easy-to-read and easy-to-write plain text format, optionally convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML)". [4]

Media

Daring Fireball

Since 2002, Gruber has written and produced Daring Fireball, [5] [6] [7] a technology-focused blog. He has described his Daring Fireball writing as a "Mac column in the form of a weblog." [8] The site is written in the form of a tumblelog called The Linked List, a linklog with brief commentary, in between occasional longform articles that discuss Apple products and issues in related consumer technology. Gruber often writes about user interfaces, software development, Mac applications, and Apple's media coverage. On Daring Fireball, Gruber tends to cover Apple in a positive manner [9] [10] [11] and defend Apple against criticism. [12] [13] [14] Media outlets have described Gruber as an Apple "fanboy" in conjunction with his writing on the website; [22] Gruber responded in a 2011 interview that although he does not use the term fanboy, he supports Apple because he appreciates the company. [23]

The original Daring Fireball T-shirt DaringFireballOriginalTshirt.jpg
The original Daring Fireball T-shirt

In 2004, Gruber began selling memberships, where readers donate an amount of money annually and gain access to perks. [24] The perks included more detailed feeds, but Gruber has downplayed the importance of the extra features, comparing them to "PBS tote bags." [25] Daring Fireball logo T-shirts are also sold, which include a membership. [26]

In April 2006, Daring Fireball became Gruber's full-time job, funded by advertisement revenue, membership fees, T-shirt sales, and donations from software projects hosted on the site, such as Markdown. [27] [26]

From 2006 to 2017, [28] [29] the site displayed advertisements from The Deck, an advertising network serving sites like A List Apart and 37signals in addition to Daring Fireball.

The Talk Show

The Talk Show is a technology podcast started by Gruber intended as a "director's commentary" to Daring Fireball. Guests are usually programmers, designers, analysts and journalists.

In June 2007, Gruber and Dan Benjamin began co-hosting an independent podcast featuring conversations and commentary on trends, mainly focusing on technology at thetalkshow.net. [30] This format persisted but the show "started over" and helped establish Benjamin's 5by5 Studios network. The show ran from July 2010 until May 2012 for a total of 90 episodes. [31] Gruber moved the show to the Mule Radio Syndicate network in May 2012. [32] This time, Gruber changed the format and became the sole host of the show with alternating guests each episode. The show ran for 80 episodes and in May 2014, The Talk Show parted ways with Mule Radio and became part of Daring Fireball. [33] [34] The show continues to use the episode number scheme and logo started at Mule Radio.

Apple Inc. senior vice president (SVP) of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller appeared as a guest on the live episode of The Talk Show during WWDC 2015 in San Francisco. Apple SVPs Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi appeared as guests on a recorded episode published February 12, 2016. [35] Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi also appeared on the live episodes of The Talk Show during WWDC 2016 and 2017. [36]

Other works

In early 2013, Gruber, Brent Simmons, and Dave Wiskus founded software development firm Q Branch to develop the Vesper notes app for iOS. [37] The venture was not successful, and Q Branch has since shut down. [38] In March 2020, Gruber started a new podcast with friend and colleague Ben Thompson called Dithering. Each episode is exactly 15 minutes long and access to the show is granted via subscription.

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References

  1. 1 2 Hendler, James (November 10, 2022). "Foreword by James Hendler". Aaron Swartz's A Programmable Web: An Unfinished Work (PDF). Synthesis Lectures on Data, Semantics, and Knowledge. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. ix. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-79444-5. ISBN   978-3-031-79444-5 . Retrieved January 12, 2024– via Wikisource. This document was originally produced in "markdown" format, a simplified HTML/Wiki format that Aaron co-designed with John Gruber ca. 2004.
  2. 1 2 Krewinkel, Albert; Winkler, Robert (May 8, 2017). "Formatting Open Science: agilely creating multiple document formats for academic manuscripts with Pandoc Scholar" (PDF). PeerJ Computer Science . 3: 6. doi: 10.7717/peerj-cs.112 . Archived from the original on December 2, 2017. Retrieved January 12, 2024. Markdown was originally developed by John Gruber in collaboration with Aaron Swartz, with the goal to simplify the writing of HTML documents
  3. ↑ Blanc, Shawn (February 19, 2008). "John Gruber: A Mix of the Technical, the Artful, the Thoughtful, and the Absurd". ShawnBlanc.net. Retrieved October 23, 2008.
  4. ↑ Markdown 1.0.1 readme source code "Daring Fireball – Markdown". December 17, 2004. Archived from the original on April 2, 2004.
  5. ↑ "The blogosphere: Are blogs worth the hype?". CNET News . August 10, 2004. Retrieved October 23, 2008.
  6. ↑ "News.com's Blog 100". CNET News . October 7, 2005. Retrieved October 23, 2008.
  7. ↑ Snell, Jason (March 5, 2007). "Laptop nation". Macworld . Archived from the original on November 6, 2013.
  8. ↑ Gruber, John (July 8, 2003). "Independent Days". Daring Fireball . Retrieved August 17, 2007.
  9. ↑ Kovach, Steve (October 31, 2017). "I've been using the iPhone X for 18 hours, and I'm already sold". Business Insider .
  10. ↑ Swearingen, Jake (October 31, 2017). "Question of the Day: Who Got an iPhone X, and When?". New York . Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  11. ↑ Crothers, Brooke (December 10, 2011). "The Apple blogs vs. Android". CNET . Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  12. ↑ Elmer-DeWitt, Philip (August 7, 2009). "Apple's curious PR problem". Fortune . Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  13. ↑ Newcomer, Eric (December 22, 2017). "Apple Says It Slows Old iPhones, Stoking Conspiracy Theorists". Bloomberg News . Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  14. ↑ Colt, Sam (August 16, 2014). "Apple Poached Its Most Controversial Executive From Adobe, But Adobe Threw Him A Party Anyway (AAPL)". The State Journal-Register . Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  15. ↑ Blue, Violet (February 6, 2012). "The Apple fanboy problem". ZDNET . Retrieved January 11, 2024.
  16. ↑ Metz, Cade (January 27, 2011). "Fanboi king hails Apple 'love affair with open web'". The Register . Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  17. ↑ Feldman, Brian (October 25, 2016). "Is Apple Bringing iMessage to Android?". New York . Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  18. ↑ Hardawar, Devindra (August 1, 2012). "Samsung proves its desperation, sends rejected evidence from Apple case to the media". VentureBeat . Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  19. ↑ Berger, Guido (September 13, 2013). "Digital am Sonntag - Digital am Sonntag, Nr. 33: Was wird aus Nintendo?". Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (in German). Retrieved January 10, 2024. Der bekannte Apple-Fanboy John Gruber titelt «Nintendo in Motion» und empfiehlt folgendes: ...[The well-known Apple fanboy John Gruber headlines "Nintendo in Motion" and recommends the following: ...]
  20. ↑ Lyons, Daniel (April 19, 2010). "Is This Really the Next Apple iPhone?". Newsweek . Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  21. ↑ Middleton, R. J. (October 6, 2010). "Windows Phone Apparently Elegant (Insert a Double-Take Here)". NBC Bay Area . Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  22. ↑ Sources describing Gruber as an Apple "fanboy": [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
  23. ↑ Topolsky, Joshua (December 13, 2011). John Gruber on the term fanboy. On The Verge . Vox Media – via YouTube.
  24. ↑ Gruber, John. "Membership Information". Daring Fireball . Retrieved August 17, 2007.
  25. ↑ Gruber, John (June 16, 2004). "Something Daring". Daring Fireball . Retrieved August 17, 2007.
  26. 1 2 Gruber, John (October 27, 2005). "Membership Numbers". Daring Fireball . Retrieved August 17, 2007.
  27. ↑ Gruber, John (April 20, 2006). "Initiative". Daring Fireball . Retrieved August 17, 2007.
  28. ↑ Gruber, John (February 2, 2006). "Bedecked". Daring Fireball . Retrieved October 23, 2008.
  29. ↑ Anthony, Ha (March 29, 2017). "The Deck ad network is shutting down". TechCrunch . Retrieved May 19, 2017.
  30. ↑ "The Talk Show with John Gruber and Dan Benjamin". Archived from the original on April 29, 2015. Retrieved February 6, 2020.
  31. ↑ "The Talk Show on 5by5". 5by5 Studios. May 2, 2012. Archived from the original on October 25, 2010. Retrieved March 19, 2018.
  32. ↑ Mule Radio Syndicate Network
  33. ↑ Webster, Mark (February 16, 2011). "Webstock: An interview with the Daring Fireball". The New Zealand Herald .
  34. ↑ Hoare, John (August 30, 2016). "The Sad State of 'The Talk Show' Archives". Dirty Feed. Retrieved March 19, 2018.
  35. ↑ Gruber, John (February 12, 2016). "The Talk Show Episode 146". Daring Fireball . Retrieved February 12, 2016.
  36. ↑ Gruber, John (June 17, 2016). "The Talk Show Episode 158". Daring Fireball . Retrieved June 19, 2016.
  37. ↑ Gruber, John (June 6, 2013). "Vesper". Daring Fireball . Retrieved March 19, 2018.
  38. ↑ Gruber, John (August 23, 2016). "Vesper, Adieu". Daring Fireball . Retrieved March 19, 2018.
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