I recently set up a LiveJournal account. LJ is a blog service with a bunch of added extras that encourage networking among LJ members. I signed up primarily so I could comment on the blogs of my LJ friends and come up as an identity, as opposed to a strange anonymous guest. Also handy was the LJ friends system.
An LJ friend is basically someone you want to read regularly. You put them on your friends list, and then every time they add an entry it turns up on your Friends page. (Here is mine.) So you have a one-stop shop for reading all the LJs you follow. Very handy.
Anyway. I read LJs belonging to friends here, friends in NZ, and people whose work I follow – comics madman Warren Ellis, for example. I have put Warren on my friends list. Warren has about 2000 LJ readers who have done the same. 76 of those readers are on Warren’s own friends list – the people whose LJs he reads.
This is going somewhere, I promise. In fact, here’s the point now…
Roleplaying pro Mike Mearls first came to my attention writing the OGL conversion of Godlike (non gamers: just nod and smile) a few years back. He was the first guy to really throw caution to the wind and see what could be done with a great new toy. He’s carved out a freelancing career, and very recently signed on at Malhavoc Press as their first staffer who isn’t surnamed ‘Cook’. I read his LJ because he’s got interesting stuff to say about the industry. Also, he’s a funny guy.
So I made Mearls my friend. And now I’m his friend, in return. He seems to be the friend of everyone who friends him.
Why is Mearls my friend? Because he’s just a big-hearted guy, I guess.