Justin Hall (born December 16, 1974 in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and entrepreneur, best known as a pioneer

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

ger.

Biography

Born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Hall graduated Francis W. Parker High School in 1993. In 1994, while a student at

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...

, Justin started his web-based diary
Justin's Links from the Underground
', which offered one of the earliest guided tours of the web.Harmanci, Reyhan.
Time to get a life -- pioneer blogger Justin Hall bows out at 31
" ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

.'' February 20, 2005, retrieved on July 20, 2006. Over time, the site came to focus on Hall's life in intimate detail. In December 2004, ''

New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

'' referred to him as "the founding father of personal blogging."Rosen, Jeffrey.
Your Blog or Mine?
''

.'' December 14, 2004, retrieved on October 31, 2007. In 1994, during a break from college Hall joined ''

HotWired ''Hotwired'' (1994–1999) was the first commercial online magazine, launched on October 27, 1994. Although it was part of the print magazine ''Wired'', ''Hotwired'' carried original content. History Andrew Anker, Wired's then Vice Presid ...

'', the first commercial web magazine started within ''Wired'' magazine. There, he began a long-term working partnership with critic, writer and teacher

Howard Rheingold Howard Rheingold (born 1947) is an American critic, writer, and teacher, known for his specialties on the cultural, social and political implications of modern communication media such as the Internet, mobile telephony and virtual communities (a t ...

. Later Hall would become a freelance journalist covering video games, mobile technology and internet culture. He published analysis from game conferences such as E3 as well as the

Tokyo Game Show , commonly known as TGS, is a video game expo / convention held annually in September in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. It is presented by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) and Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. The ...

. He chronicled the first

Indie Game Jam The Indie Game Jam (IGJ) was an effort to rapidly prototype video game designs and inject new ideas into the game industry. Started in 2002 by a group of game designer-programmers, the event featured a shared game engine technology and worked on by ...

in 2002. From late 2001 and 2003, Hall was based in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, mostly

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and

Akita is a Japanese name and may refer to: Places * 8182 Akita, a main-belt asteroid * Akita Castle, a Nara period fortified settlement in Akita, Japan * Akita Domain, also known as Kubota Domain, feudal domain in Edo period Japan * Akita, Kumamoto ...

, authoring a guidebook Just In Tokyo. In 2007, Hall graduated from the MFA program in the

USC Interactive Media Division The University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts's Interactive Media & Games Division first accepted M.F.A. students in 2002. The division currently offers both undergraduate (B.A.) and graduate (M.F.A.) programs in interactive medi ...

. His thesis project was an attempt to make surfing the web into a multiplayer game: PMOG, the Passively Multiplayer Online Game. Hall went on to serve as CEO of GameLayers, which raised $2 million to turn PMOG into The Nethernet, a MMO in a Firefox toolbar. The Nethernet failed to turn a profit, and GameLayers closed down as a company. The server and client software for the Nethernet was released as open source and Hall went on to publish ''A Story of GameLayers'', "open-sourcing our business process". At present, Hall lives in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. He served as a Producer on ngmoco:)'s Touch Pets series, and then became ngmoco:)'s Director of Culture & Communications. After working for ngmoco:)'s parent company

DeNA Dena (in Luri and fa, ) is the name for a sub-range within the Zagros Mountains, Iran. Mount Dena, with length and average width, is situated on the boundary of the Isfahan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Prov ...

as a Recruiter, Hall left the company in mid-2013. In 2015 he released a self-produced short documentary
Overshare: the Links.net Story
' exploring his "extremely personal blogging". In September 2017, Hall began work as co-founder & Chief Technology Officer for bud.com, a California benefit corporation delivering recreational cannabis, built on a domain he registered in 1994.

Selected works

Playing a Life Online - an audio recording
March 11, 2006 (speech at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas USA)

April 2003, ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

''
"Where the Geeks Are"
August 19, 1999, ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

''
"Today's Visions of the Science of Tomorrow"
January 4, 2003, ''New York Times''

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...

"Hire This Boy To Play Your Video Games"
October 12, 2000, ''Rolling Stone'' * ''Just In Tokyo'', 2002, Garrett County Press.

Contributor

* J. Goldstein & J. Raessens, ''Handbook of Computer Game Studies'', MIT Press, 2005: Chapter on "Future of Games: Mobile Gaming" * T. Fullerton & C. Swain, ''Game Design Workshop'', CMP Books, 2004: Sidebar/chapter on "The Indie Game Jam." * V. Burnham, ''Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age'', MIT Press, 2001: Essays on the Apple ] Burger Time and Spy Hunter.

Films

* Hall was featured in the documentary ''Home Page (documentary), Home Page''. * He appeared nude as an actor in ''Blood''. * Hall appears in the science fiction film ''Radio Free Steve''. * Hall appeared in Famke Janssen, Famke Janssen's critically panned 2011 film Bringing Up Bobby (2011 film), ''Bringing Up Bobby''.

References

External links