SocialSev

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of meeting and spending time with Josh Catone. If you don’t recognize his name, chances are you’d recognize his work. Josh is currently the Features Editor for Mashable, the world’s most widely-read social media blog (source: compete.com). Digging a little deeper into Josh’s past, one could easily mistake his résumé for the subscriptions list of a techie’s RSS reader.

Josh started his illustrious career writing for the wildly popular computing magazine, Maximum PC… while he was still in high school. But he was just getting warmed up. Before he landed his next high profile writing gig, Josh launched Rails Forum, a community for Ruby on Rails users. Today, that site receives 25K-35K unique visitors per month. He then spent over a year as the Lead Writer/Editor for ReadWriteWeb before accepting the Lead Blogger position at SitePoint. Earlier this year, Josh took on the role of Community Manager for DandyID, a data portability platform for online identity management. But that gig would be short-lived, as Mashable came knocking this spring.

Although Mr. Catone has firmly established himself as a social media rock star, you’d never know it by talking to him. He’s one of the most down-to-earth, humble people that I’ve ever met in this industry. The night that I met Josh, he also introduced me to a friend of his who didn’t use Twitter, Facebook, or any of the other IP’s that we’re all so addicted to. In the social media world, that’s a lot like being Amish. But I also believe it’s one of the many ways that Josh keeps himself grounded, a trait that likely fueled his success over the years.

As that evening gave way to the wee hours of morning, we stood overlooking the Chicago River, trying to figure out how many levels there were to the city and how to get to all of them. Our conversations frequently drifted away from social media. When I asked him about doing this piece, I told him that I thought he had a “cool, interesting story that I’d like to tell.” Josh responded, “I dunno if ‘interesting’ is a word you should use in the same sentence as me.” But Josh’s modesty only reinforced my desire to share his tale.

Let’s start at the beginning. How did you get your foot in the door at Maximum PC? Did they ever find out that you were still in high school at the time?

I think I was sixteen at the time, and Maximum PC was running a back page humor column called “The Daily Glitch.”  It was a parody newspaper front page that was supposed to poke fun at the top technology stories each month.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, it wasn’t very funny.

So I wrote up some ideas and sent them off to Jon Philips, who at the time was Editor-in-Chief at Maximum PC and is now Editorial Director for Future US (the publisher of the magazine).  I wasn’t really expecting them to publish anything I sent in; I was actually just offering up some ideas.  Jon wrote back a few days later to let me know that it was their policy not to accept article suggestions that were so developed, but they’d be happy to have me as a contributor and did I have any other ideas.  I was totally floored, plus they paid me (I think $200/page, which was a lot of money to a 16-year-old).

The gig only lasted a couple of months before they redesigned the magazine and replaced the humor column with a feature called “Rig of the Month” about souped up gaming computers, but it was my first taste of professional writing and I haven’t looked back.

I’m sure your inbox is flooded with hundreds (if not thousands) of emails from PR types every day, touting their Web 2.0 apps as the next big thing. How do you decide what gets published on Mashable and what gets discarded?

So I don’t actually deal day-to-day with news and product reviews — that’s a separate team of people altogether. My job is to write features and edit guest posts. What we look for in a guest poster is strong writing ability, a background that lends credibility to the topic, and a unique angle that we haven’t covered before.

With over 288K subscribers and almost 1.3M Twitter followers, how does a company like Mashable manage such an active and passionate community?

It’s really a combination of a great team and great content. The former begets the latter and that’s why people stick around and stay passionate about what we’re doing.

What aspects of social media interest you the most? In your personal opinion, what trends or developments could be game-changers?

With the rise of the “real-time web,” I think information overload is only going to become a more and more serious problem. So I am very interested in tools that attempt to filter out all the noise and make social media easier to consume.  I’m also a fan of any tool that encourages people to get out and do things other than just type away at their keyboards all day. Apps like foursquare fit that bill.

I’ve also become interested (partially due to one of my side projects) in how social media can be used by educators.

Tell me about Rails Forum. Was it a case of necessity being the mother of invention or was it started just for fun?

It was actually more a case of opportunism than anything else. In May 2005, I started hearing a lot of buzz about this new framework called Ruby on Rails, and I thought maybe there was a way to capitalize on it. So I bought the domain railsforum.com, and a few others. A year later, with Rails still gaining steam, I launched the site along with a couple of friends who actually are programmers and actually use Rails.

Now it has been three years and though I’m still not a programmer, I do feel pretty well connected to the Rails community (both at Rails Forum and more broadly), and I utilize Rails for my side projects.

What do you think Rails 3.0 needs to do to boost the technology from an application framework option to the platform of choice for developers? Are scalability and speed the biggest issues that need to be addressed?

I’m not sure that is has to become “the platform of choice.” I’m a firm believer that developers should use the best tools for the job, whether that’s Rails or not. Rails won’t be right for every project or for every developer, and that’s okay.

In terms of Rails development, Twitter, Hulu, and 37signals are essentially household names. What other teams are doing cool projects with Rails that people might not be aware of?

There are really a ton of awesome and huge sites built on Rails now. Scribd, Get Satisfaction, iLike, YellowPages.com, Justin.tv, Chow.com, Penny Arcade, Funny or Die, GitHub, Soundcloud, Cork’d, Shopify, Lighthouse, Pitchfork, Red Bubble — I could go on and on. But it’s important to remember that Rails is just one piece of the puzzle for all these sites.

You have a pretty eclectic background in tech and social media journalism. What lessons have you learned through the years? What advice would you give to an independent blogger with career aspirations?

I’ve learned that being a blogger is a lot harder than it sounds. Sitting at home all day in your pajamas can be part of it, sure, but you do a lot of real work while in your PJs. I’ve learned that South by Southwest is a lot of fun. I’ve learned that you should never give your phone number to PR people, especially before a big conference. Though I’ve also learned that a lot of people in public relations are really smart and very good at their jobs. I’ve learned that even if you’re writing about Twitter, sometimes you have to turn it off so you can get some work done.

My advice to aspiring bloggers is to keep writing. Keep doing what you do and don’t be shy about approaching the “A-list” bloggers about collaborating or doing guest posts. You’ll get farther, faster if you get your name out there.

Last question. This one’s for bonus points, so it’s a two-parter. a) Why was downtown Chicago built on multiple levels? b) If you’re standing on the south side of Wacker, then cross the street and turn around, on what level of Chicago are you standing?

a) So while in Chicago, someone told me it had to do with the fires of 1871. The city burned down and it was rebuilt on a higher level to protect against future fires, though I’m not sure how building everything on stilts would stop the flames — doesn’t heat rise? Wikipedia says it has to do with creeping sewage and rising river water, which is certainly more believable, but not something I’d put on the tourist brochure. b) I honestly am still not sure how I made it out of that place, but I have heard that if you get to level 6, you win an extra guy, which is helpful against the boss on level 9.

Special thanks to Scott Radcliff, Damian Rintelmann, and Mike Driehorst for their contributions.