Boing Boing

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For the April single album (extended play), see Boing Boing (April single album).

Boing Boing

Type of site Group blog

Owner Happy Mutants

Editor Mark Frauenfelder, Cory Doctorow, David

Pescovitz, Xeni Jardin, Rob Beschizza

Website boingboing.net

Alexa rank 3,722 (August 2016)[1]

Commercial Yes

Launched 1988 (zine)

1995 (website)

2000 (blog)

Boing Boing is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common
topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual
property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice won the Bloggies for Weblog of the Year, in 2004 and
2005. The editors are Mark Frauenfelder, Cory Doctorow, David Pescovitz, Xeni Jardin and Rob
Beschizza,[2] and the publisher is Jason Weisberger.
One report named Boing Boing as the most popular blog in the world until 2006, when Chinese-
language blogs became popular,[3][4] and it remained among the most widely-linked and cited blogs
into the 2010s.[5][6][7]

Contents
 1History
 2Unicorn chaser
 3Boing Boing Gadgets and Offworld
 4Boing Boing TV
 5Censorship
o 5.1Violet Blue controversy
 6Notes and references
 7External links
o 7.1Unpublished

History[edit]
Boing Boing (originally bOING bOING) started as a zine in 1988 by married duo Mark Frauenfelder
and Carla Sinclair.[8] Issues were subtitled "The World's Greatest Neurozine". Associate editors
included Gareth Branwyn, Jon Lebkowsky, Paco Nathan, and Pescovitz. Along with Mondo
2000, Boing Boing was an influence in the development of the cyberpunk subculture. It reached a
maximum circulation of 17,500 copies.[8] The last issue of the zine was #15.

1990 Boing Boing logo, from a T-shirt

Boing Boing was established as a website in 1995[9] and one year later was a web-only
publication.[8] While researching for an article about blogs in 1999, Frauenfelder became acquainted
with the Blogger software. He relaunched Boing Boing as a weblog on 21 January 2000, describing
it as a "directory of wonderful things".[8] Over time, Frauenfelder was joined by four co-editors:
Doctorow, Pescovitz, Jardin and Beschizza, all of whom previously contributed
to Wired magazine. Maggie Koerth-Baker, after a run as a guest blogger in 2009,[10] joined the site as
its Science Editor, leaving to join a Nieman Foundation fellowship in 2014.
In September 2003, Boing Boing removed their Quicktopics user-comment feature without warning
or explanation. Bloggers commenting on the change at the time speculated that it stemmed from
"identity impersonators and idiot flamers" pretending to be co-editors.[11] Xeni Jardin was a guest on
the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer to discuss the Washington Post's decision to remove its Comments
section on its website, and she spoke from her experience at Boing Boing.[12] In August 2007, Boing
Boing staff launched a redesigned site, which included a restored comment facility, moderated
by Teresa Nielsen Hayden. In 2013, Boing Boing switched from the proprietary Disqus comment
system to Discourse, an open-source internet forum developed by Jeff Atwood, Robin Ward and
Sam Saffron.[13]
In 2004, the project incorporated as Happy Mutants LLC, and John Battelle became the blog's
business manager.[14][15] Boing Boing, by the mid-2000s, "had become one of the most-read and
linked-to blogs in the world" according to Fast Company.[8]
The site added advertising over the course of late 2004, placed above and to the left and right of
material, and, in 2005, in the site's RSS feed as well. Editor Cory Doctorow noted that "John
[Battelle] said it's going to be harder to make a little money to pay your bandwidth bills than it will be
to make a lot of money and have a real source of income from this."[16] The advertising income during
the first quarter was already $27,000, and as of 2010, Boing Boing still "makes a nice living for its
founders and a handful of contract employees," but it is no longer a member of Battelle's blog
network Federated Media Publishing, Inc.[8]
Boing Boing featured a "guest blogger" sidebar, then stopped the series in summer of 2004. In 2008,
the "guest blogger" series was resumed, with guests posting in the main blog for two-week periods.
Guests have included Charles Platt, John Shirley, Mark Dery, Tiffany Lee Brown, Karen Marcelo
of Survival Research Laboratories, Johannes Grenzfurthner of monochrom, Rudy Rucker, Gareth
Branwyn, Wiley Wiggins, Jason Scott of textfiles.com, Jessamyn West of librarian.net,
journalists Danny O'Brien and Quinn Norton and comedian John Hodgman.
In September 2006, Boing Boing introduced a weekly podcast, "Boing Boing Boing", intended to
cover the week's posts and upcoming projects. The show's cast consists of the Boing Boing editors,
accompanied by a weekly guest. In the same month, Boing Boing introduced a second podcast
called "Get Illuminated", which features interviews with writers, artists, and other creatives.
The site's own original content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial
license, as of November 2019.[17]
In September 2009, Boing Boing refused to comply with a demand from Polo Ralph Lauren's
lawyers to remove a post concerning a heavily manipulated image of model Filippa Hamilton,
originally published by the Photoshop Disasters blog. The latter was forced to comply with the
company's demand by its hosting provider.[18] Ralph Lauren issued DMCA takedown notices
to BoingBoing's ISP and Blogspot, which hosts Photoshop Disasters, claiming their use of the image
infringed copyright. Blogspot complied, but Boing Boing's ISP consulted with Boing Boing and
agreed that the image was fair use. As a result, Boing Boing issued a mocking rebuttal,[19] using the
same image again and posting the takedown notice.
The rebuttal was widely reported, including on frequently viewed websites such as The Huffington
Post[20] and ABC News.[21]
On 3 May 2011, the first podcast of "Gweek" was released. Gweek is a podcast in which the editors
and friends of Boing Boing talk about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, TV
shows, music, movies, tools, gadgets, apps, and other "neat" stuff. In the first episode of Gweek,
Rob Beschizza and Mark Frauenfelder discussed subjects such as the video game Portal 2, graphic
novels, upcoming science fiction books, and recommendations of some of their favorite adventure
games for mobile platforms. Boing Boing has since added several other podcasts.[22]
In late 2017 or early 2018,[when?] the site was sued by Playboy, which alleged that a hyperlink to
copyright-infringing content at Imgur and YouTube was itself illegal.[23][needs update]

Unicorn chaser