[Cross Posted to the Bloglines blog and the Ask Jeeves blog]: Blogs have given individuals of any and every background the ability to freely speak their minds and share information with anyone who chooses to read it, at any time they wish to do so. Bloglines was created for people as a window to access this world of dynamic content and a way to participate in its creation. We believe blogs have helped enable an open exchange of information that has never before been possible.

Things have been quiet around here, and I apologize. In no particular order: I was on two panels at the SES San Jose conference last week, which was fun. If you ever have the chance to test Gary Price’s knowledge of obscure ‘80’s pop-culture trivia, I highly recommend it. The man is an encyclopedia both of amazing breadth and depth. I did in fact go flying in a Stearman, and I have the pictures to prove it.

I’ll be at the Always On conference this Thursday, July 21, on the Open or Closed Web panel, moderated by that shrinking wallflower Marc Canter. I’ll be arguing for a Closed Web. Of course, I am kidding with those last two statements. As I am continually reminded, sarcasm doesn’t translate well to the written page. On August 8th, I’ll be on the Vox Populi: Understanding the role of consumer-generated content panel of the SES San Jose conference.

Echoing many of the things I’ve been saying, Joe Kraus has a great piece on how cheap it is to start a web company. I can provide a couple of additional data points. I started ONElist with $5K. That lasted from January 1998 to June 1998 (it was cheap even back then to launch a start-up). I then raised $50K from a friend and that carried us through the rest of 1998, at which point we had 1M users and raised VC.

I’m flattered to be included in the AO/Technorati Open Media 100 in the Toolsmiths category. Thanks to everyone involved!

Greetings from Tokyo. The response to Stealth Start-Ups Suck has been fantastic so far, both pro and con. Thanks to everyone who’s been commenting on it. You can track people talking about it through this link for Bloglines citations. I didn’t mean to specifically pick on 24 Hour Laundry and I didn’t realize others had already been doing so. I don’t know them and I’m sure they’re nice and smart people.

There’s been a small rash (ouch, you should see a doctor about that…rimshot) of press coverage about the new stealth web start-up 24 Hour Laundry. Who knows what they do, but whatever it is, they’re doing it wrong. Here’s the thing, stealth mode for a web start-up is the kiss of death. Stealth mode is when a company is operating in secret for some length of time before launching their product or service.

Is it me, or is every single conference scheduled for the week of June 20? Here’s what’s up: I’ll be on a panel at the CNET Japan Innovation Conference on Monday, June 20 in Tokyo. Also on Monday is the Whole New Internet workshop of SuperNova in San Francisco. Daniel Read will be presenting in my stead. On Wednesday is the RSS Feeds and Podcasting session of WebmasterWorld in New Orleans.

I’m back on the West Coast again, at least for a few weeks. I moderated a panel at the Syndicate Conference in NYC this past Wednesday. We arrived Tuesday evening, in time to catch a fun blogger dinner at Gallagher’s Steak House in Times Square. For this particular carnivore, it was like heaven. Large slabs of cow and other mammals all over the place. Very yummy. Wednesday morning, I had a meeting with Business Week’s Stephen Baker, as described here.

As part of our ongoing Universal Inbox strategy, we launched weather forecasts in Bloglines this evening. Simply click the ‘Add’ link from your My Feeds display, and then select the ‘Weather’ link. You can add a weather forecast by city/state or zipcode. Forecasts are available from throughout the world, and like all of Bloglines, this new feature is localized in the 8 different languages that Bloglines supports.