Newsvine commentary & Silent Lucidity

I got a letter from reader M.D. …

Hi there,

I’m typing this out to thank you for having an active voice in the commentary about the Colorado teacher incident. Your points intrigued me enough to follow links to your Silent Lucidity blog, so that I might find this email to contact you at. In doing so, I read the front articles as I scrolled down, and I was really excited to see such an informative presentation.

Regarding the newsvine commentary; reading your responses as you wade through the opposing viewpoints (which my feelings for ranged from neutral, to downright ignorant, not surprisingly) inspired me to let you know that, while there are tons of people out here like myself who feel as you do (although I am nowhere near as informed, just that I simply feel what you state is the correct viewpoint), for one reason or another, the vast majority do not put out the effort to communicate to the general public about all of this, let alone make any effort to inform and educate. While my time is unfortunately extremely tied up between work and classes, I definitely wanted to take a few minutes out of it to thank you, because I’m not sure just how many people are willing to make the effort to display appreciation. Just know, and you probably already do, that there must be quite a few other folks out there like myself who appreciate efforts like yours which, while making a point, do so clearly and concisely (relatively, so perhaps another good descriptor is ‘efficiently’), as it really does go a long way towards validating that viewpoint.

I’m stopping myself from raving on, whilest ranting about people and opinions in general, as not to dilute the point of this email, and also because I’m confident it would be nothing new to you. I’m going to spend a good deal of my free time in the near future to pore through more of your blog.

Thanks again, your voice really does make an impact.

Nice to get feedback like that every now and then. Thanks, M.D.

And for those who don’t know what NewsVine is…

Seattle-based Newsvine, Inc. was founded in 2005 by a small team of like-minded colleagues with one purpose: to build a perfectly different, perfectly efficient way to read, write, and interact with the news. Founded by veterans of Disney, ESPN, and other media organizations, the mission of Newsvine is to bring together big and little media in a way which respects established journalism and empowers the individual at the same time.

At Newsvine, you can read stories from established media organizations like the Associated Press as well as individual contributors from all around the world. Placement of stories is determined by a multitude of factors including freshness, popularity, and reputation. Contribution is open to all, and editorial judgement is in the hands of the community.

Newsvine is funded by Seattle-based Second Avenue Partners with original ESPN.com CEO Mike Slade and Aquantive founder Nick Hanauer on the company’s Board of Directors. Second Avenue Partners is a Seattle-based provider of management, strategy, and capital for early stage companies. The firm’s venture fund is directed at emerging Internet businesses in the high-tech field. Second Avenue Partners investment approach is to make early-stage investments in promising ventures and build long-term relationships, actively assisting its portfolio companies in becoming market leaders.

Here’s my column over there.