When I looked around for somewhere to work while still working for Ravensbourne college, one of the things which really attracted me to the BBC was one cutting edge projects they were working on and two the creative people it employed. Tom Coates was one of the those people whos name would popup at many events I attended and I became a reader of his blog well before I joined the BBC. So with all this in mind its a real shame to say he's now leaving for a job at Yahoo! Tom was monumental in pushing the BBC creatively, technically and with his stance on blogging, politically. He will be missed by the BBC, just like Matt Biddulph who only left a month ago too. You have to wonder what Yahoo! has or offered which the BBC doesnt. I could guess, but then I would need to kill you.
For those who dont know Tom, I wanted to quote a comment which was left for him in his next entry about the daily show on more 4.
I'm sorry. Was this supposed to be even remotely interesting? I don't mean to be rude but like what the **** are you writing about? Don't you have anything more interesting to say? Jesus Christ Almighty, aren't blogs supposed to be of even remote interest? Obviously not.
FA
– Posted by: Faustino Asprilla at October 18, 2005 12:07 AM
And Tom's reply
Wow. Well, you may not have wanted to be rude, but I think you kind of were anyway.
Let me make something clear. I write my site because I enjoy writing it, and because it gives me a platform to engage in conversation with my peers. I do not set out to entertain people, and I have no obligation to you whatsoever to make my site appealing to you. I'm not writing for a mass audience. I don't want my weblog to make me famous. I'm not making any money out of it – there's no advertising anywhere. I write for the same reasons I speak, to express my opinions, engage in discussion and respond to things going on in the world.
If you don't like what I write, or you find it boring, then that's fine. There are an enormous amount of other sites out there on the internet that you could explore – on every subject imaginable. I'm sure there's something there that you'll find exciting. In the meantime, you may find what I wrote dull, but at least I didn't set out to be rude to anyone, I didn't try and piss anyone off or ridicule anyone else's creative work. I have only one example of your writing to examine, and it looks like the same could not be said of you.
– Posted by: Tom Coates at October 18, 2005 01:00 AM
How could we have let Tom go?
