Best and Brightest

The Best and Brightest, Glamorous Life #33. Who says Zeldman gets linked less?

Zeldman has had a profound influence on the way I think about the web. I started taking web craft seriously because of Zeldman. WordPress exists because of Zeldman. I am where I am today because of Jeffrey Zeldman. This isn’t hyperbole, just statement of fact.

I think now is an excellent time for people to take a walk through his archives and highlight their favorite articles, something I’ll do myself at least once a day every day this week. If you’re doing something similar leave a comment so I can follow along. It’ll be interesting to see what people were most influenced by from one of the most influential fathers of today’s web.

9 thoughts on “Best and Brightest

  1. In that same sense, I’m probably this experienced in CSS and semantics because of WordPress. Jeffrey was a big help, reading about how it was, not how it had to be done. That’s how he inspired me. I’m thankful, and I see no reason why I should ever drop him. I’ll see what nice posts I spot.

  2. Thank you.

    That post, and others subsequent to it, have been grating on me. I felt I lacked the ‘authority’ to comment on it directly and there is certainly enough FUD floating around Scoble that the last thing I want to do is add to the noise.

    JZ taught me everything I know about building sites. Back when he was a lone voice in the wilderness some of us paid attention, the folks who did are the suppastars of the moment. The ones who didn’t went to work for Microsoft and Sun where they can babble incessantly about arcane protocols they, and about twenty other people in the world, actually understand. Meanwhile, Zeldmans work continues to influence sites ranging from ESPN to Yahoo.

    God forbid, someone actually lives life without fulfilling our need for constant updates and taste in syndication flavors. I found the post referenced mean spirited and distasteful. On the other hand, we could just burn him. Yeah, that’s it. Burn him, I say.

  3. Another Zeldman follower here. I wouldn’t be having any interest in web design at all if not for Jeffrey Zeldman. His writing has always been a joy to read, and I admit it has a strong influence in my work. Though honestly, it’s true that he hasn’t written much for the past year.

    But to use RSS as a gauge for popularity or any other metric would certainly be foolish. RSS has its purpose, and its not the same as design. In my book, Zeldman *still* is my web design guru.

  4. Ever since I read the little orange book, I’m hooked. If it’s not Zeldman, then, it must be the book he wrote. It’s nice to draw inspiration from people who have taken it to the next level (one like yourself).

  5. If we had to kick one person of the WWW lifeboat, who would we miss more – Scoble or Zeldman?

    Rhetorical question – no need to answer 😉

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