When I joined Future US this past summer, I walked in many ways through a door to a new dimension. Although I’d been writing about videogames for 15 years, the lightning-fast movement of online technology had always passed me up. Recently it seems the pace of online technology has made even the quick stride of videogame technology look slow.

One of the first names I heard upon sitting down was Louis Gray. BallHype Inc’s founding team Jason and Erin Gurney spoke about him with reverence and respect, and when we launched MacBlips in the fall, he was one of the first to comment on stories, offer feedback, and claim a blog. He seemed ubiquitous.

After reading his regularly updated blog (louisgray.com), his comments on a range of technological advances, and perhaps more important than anything, learning he was a sports fan, I’d come to respect his clearly thought-out commentary, analysis, and perspective on a number of subjects, from the state of Twitter, objectionable changes on Facebook, Google’s direction, and more.

It’s hard not to like a guy whose blog starts with the subhead, “Silicon Valley Blog for early adopters, technology geeks, RSS addicts and Mac freaks. (May also occasionally contain some TiVo, media, sports and politics...)”

Author of louisgray.com, Gray has more than a decade of experience in marketing, public relations and demand generation in both hardware and Internet companies, and has recently become the father to twins. His only fault, in my humble opinion, is that he likes the Sacramento Kings. But hey, nobody’s perfect, right?

TechBlips: When you first started louisgray.com, what was your original goal? Was it simply an outlet, or did you have a broad goal from the outset? Has that goal evolved since starting the site?
 
Louis Gray: I first started louisgray.com as a place to put down my thoughts around technology, sports, politics and music. Having previously been an active participant on my family's blog, run by my mother since 2004, I knew I could be posting a lot more frequently than I had been, and didn't want to drown my family in updates--especially around technology, where I've always seemingly been much more interested than they are. As time has passed, the blog has become much more technology-centric and a lot less Louis-centric. I like to have a personal, conversational element of each post I do to let readers know what I'm thinking and what I'm seeing, but I feel if I post personal updates or family news, it's not exactly what they're looking for. I also dramatically cut back on my sports blogging as a result in 2007 and 2008--knowing that my new audience didn't really care as much as I did.

TechBlips: What are the general reactions from your friends, family and coworkers when you started it?

Louis Gray: I made a conscious decision to not blog about work, or even the industry we are in, for fear of getting "Dooced" as they say. In fact, in the early months, the blog was very much a secret from co-workers--not because I was fearful I would be fired or anything dramatic of that sort, but because I didn't want to raise questions about my focus or time. Family was intrigued by my going out on my own (versus the family blog), but as with my previous posts on technology had drawn few comments, they still weren't all that interested in my entries on Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc., so I knew the target of the blog had to be people I'd never met.

TechBlips: What are some sites that inspired its creation?

Louis Gray: I can't say I modeled the site after anybody in particular. On the sports side, I had actively blogged on Athletics Nation and Sactown Royalty since 2005 and 2006, so doing so on my site came naturally. The other technology posts and politics were, again, in my own style, but I had read many others, from Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis in tech to Daily Kos in politics. Starting the blog was as much a technological hurdle as a writing hurdle. I'd wanted to start one for some time, but couldn't get a platform that didn't require server-side scripting while keeping my personal domain. Nerdy, yes... but the truth.

TechBlips: What are some of the sites you visit daily?

Louis Gray: I read hundreds of different sites each day, thanks to Google Reader, using RSS. Many of those I read each day are ones familiar to most people who watch tech closely--from TechCrunch to ReadWriteWeb and CenterNetworks, but also some smaller blogs, including FutureBuzz and Regular Geek. In addition to getting my RSS feed fix with Google Reader, I also find a tremendous number of new and interesting articles through FriendFeed, a social aggregator, where my friends can highlight even more content.

TechBlips: How many times a day do you Twitter?

Louis Gray: I am honestly not a power user of Twitter. I have always been very self-aware about not "tweeting too often," if there is such a thing, and trying to keep what I would post there relevant to a good share of those who have chosen to follow me. As a result, probably half of my tweets are announcements of new blog posts. Another good percentage comes from native items I share with FriendFeed that are copied to Twitter. But of late, I have been adding a few personal updates during the day when it makes sense--which means I probably tweet four-six times a day and very rarely much more than that.

TechBlips: What drives and compels you to write on your blog? And perhaps more telling, how do you hold a day job, parent two kids, and still find time to write this blog?
 
Louis Gray: Writing on the blog as I have for the last three-plus years has given me a seat at the table with very interesting entrepreneurs and big companies, more than the typical user. I have enjoyed being able to bring awareness to services and people very early in their life cycle, or simply enjoyed offering my suggestions, from a third-party perspective, of how products could improve. Often, of course, I am wrong, but there have been a good number of companies who have taken some of my better suggestions to heart, enabling my blog to be part of a two-way product cycle.

As for managing it all, I honestly never feel like I will have it nailed. I wish I could blog even more. I wish I had the kind of time to review services with the time and depth I was able to do before twins, and I know that being at work eight or more hours a day pretty much excludes my voice being heard with many stories and keeps me away from most tech events. But I don't blog from work, with extremely rare exceptions, and make much of the evening time about the blog, once I've played with the kids for a few hours and put them to bed. Writing blog posts, for me anyway, doesn't take a whole lot of time (maybe 20 minutes), but reading the context and making sure I'm getting the story right is more time-consuming.

TechBlips: What would you tell someone who aspires to become a tech writer? Any words of advice?
 
Louis Gray: I would recommend being passionate about tech--and knowing that you would enjoy writing even if nobody ever came to your blog to read it or to leave any comments. They will need to recognize that once you start, you shouldn't stop, so there is a serious commitment involved. I would recommend being willing to explore areas of technology that they don't know well, and to be willing to ask questions and be wrong, but not take it personally when people tell you so, or worse. I would recommend to not get caught up in the competition side of things, against other blogs, or to get obsessed with numbers. Statistics are fun, but they should stay fun, and not drive the activity. But if you know specific parts of tech very well, and think there is a missing voice about what you love, go for it.

TechBlips: What have been some of the best stories you've covered? What made them unique and memorable?

Louis Gray: A lot of what I write tends to be less about "news coverage" and more interpretation and opinion based. I have enjoyed launching new sites, such as Socialmedian (acquired for $7.5 million in 2008) and TweetDeck (who just got a funding round for their Twitter application), and seeing them flourish, but it has been the posts that stir up discussion--such as if there is a right way and wrong way to use internal links, or whether blogs should carry ads, that have been memorable. The first post I ever did that really got me thinking I could make a difference was when I made a list of 10 suggestions for Google Reader, in March 2007. In the comments, one of the engineers on the Google Reader team said that at a recent offsite, he and his colleagues had been thinking along the same lines. It was exciting to think that maybe I was on to something, and exciting to see that someone I respected had noticed.

TechBlips: What is the best experience that has come out of your blog?
 
Louis Gray: The best experiences (plural) that have come from my blog have been to sit face to face with the developers of great services, and share in their excitement, even if my role of spreading the word has only been a small part of their success. I have also enjoyed getting the opportunity to participate on a few panels at technology conferences, and meet people I have respected reading or seen in my comment threads.

TechBlips: How do you promote your blog? And what type of publicity have you received?

Louis Gray: I don't believe I do much to promote the blog in the traditional sense. In theory, noting new posts on Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook or anywhere else can drive awareness and traffic. Also, for fun, I made some shirts and stickers that bear the LG logo from the site, but those were as much for me as anyone else.

Publicity for me comes from other bloggers who might link back or make comments about what I have written. In some rare cases, I have done phone interviews with newspapers as diverse as the San Jose Mercury News, the Christian Science Monitor and even the Catholic Reporter, but it is the publicity from my peers that has been most relevant and rewarding.

TechBlips: What kinds of responses do you get from readers? What's one of the funniest or more outrageous comments you've received? What's the most critical/honest one you've received?

Louis Gray: Comments from readers can go different directions, of course. I like the ones where people get excited and say it is the first time they have heard of something, or that I have helped explain something in a better way than they previously knew. I also often get told that I am an Apple fanboy, or that I promote services that have no business model--as if their focus on tech instead of the bottom line is somehow my fault. I find most readers to be very honest, but willing to try and set me straight if I say anything too outrageous.

TechBlips: What is this business about living on the peninsula, going to UC Berkeley, being a Golden Bears fan, and also being a Kings fan? How is that possible?

Louis Gray: Oh. Are the Warriors still in the NBA?

From third grade to my senior year in high school, I lived in the Northern Valley of California, so Sacramento Kings games were always on the radio (even if not that often on TV). After going through 10 years of listening to horrible to acceptable basketball, suffering through the years of Duane Causwell, Olden Polynice and Wayman Tisdale, to turn my back on the Kings would be like turning my back on a shared experience and something we went through together. That said, given I've become such a tech geek of late, it's all I can do to stay on top of the A's and being a good Cal fan--so my NBA fandom is very shallow right now.

TechBlips: Anything else you'd like to add?

Louis Gray: Only that I blog because I enjoy it. I enjoy learning new things, hearing from new people, and trying to keep pace with sites that have significant resources, but do it for free in my spare time without a budget. I want people to know that when I write, I do so without a hidden agenda. Also that I would rather not write about products I hate than to write negative stories--which would serve only to depress my readers and me. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, you should stop, and I'm nowhere near done.