Dave Winer says he'll quit blogging

Blog pioneer Dave Winer, author of the "Scripting News," has indicated that he plans to stop blogging by the end of the year to free up time and become less of a public figure--temporarily. "I want some privacy, I want to matter less, so I can retool, and matter more, in different ways," he wrote at the end of a blog entry Monday.

Winer, who helped develop and promote RSS, is just one of several high-profile bloggers to leave the game of late. Jason Kottke, the daring soul who quit his Web design job in the hopes that micropayments from readers would support him, recently called it quits. And that followed Dan Gillmor's news that he'd be ending his San Francisco Bay Area-focused blog, Bayosphere, to explore new projects.

We couldn't reach Winer immediately for comment, but on his blog he wrote: "Probably before the end of 2006, I will put this site in mothballs, in archive mode, and go on to other things, Murphy-willing of course."

He goes on to say many of his blog-oriented goals have been accomplished. For example, there are almost a billion Web sites out there, APIs on Web applications are now commonplace, and the Internet has decentralized the news, he wrote. "Blogging doesn't need me anymore. It'll go on just as well, maybe even better, with some new space opened up for some new things. But more important to me, there will be new space for me."

Blog community response:

"Dave, no. This isn't allowed. Scripting News was the first blog I read, starting with an email subscription, then RSS. It is the only blog that I read every single day. Entire generations of bloggers exist (well, their blogs exist, to be more accurate) only because they started out reading Scripting News and were inspired by you."
--Crunchnotes

"So is Dave going to stop or is he simply looking for affirmation that he is still loved in the blogosphere? Only time will tell. I can understand if Dave really does want to stop blogging. Blogging takes up an incredible amount of time and with the number of posts Dave puts out each day, it makes you wonder...Hobby or addiction?"
--AirHead

"Dave's not known for being a shrinking violet; he has strong views on a lot of technologies. But love him or hate him, he's had huge impact on software in the last ten years."
--TheOpenForce