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Matthew Haughey (born October 10, 1972) is an American programmer, web designer, and
blogger 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 s ...
best known as the founder of the community
weblog 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 ...
MetaFilter MetaFilter, known as MeFi to its members, is a general-interest community weblog, founded in 1999 and based in the United States, featuring links to content that users have discovered on the web. Since 2003, it has included the popular question-a ...
, where he is known as ''mathowie''.


Life and career

Haughey grew up in Placentia,
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. He graduated from the
University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...
with a B.S. and M.S. in
environmental science Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geograp ...
. Haughey designed his first website in 1995. From 1997 to 2000, Haughey was a webmaster and programmer for Social Sciences Computing at
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
. In 2000, he moved to the
San Francisco Bay area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
where, as an employee of
Pyra Labs Pyra Labs is a subsidiary of Google (Alphabet) that created the Blogger service in 1999. Google acquired Pyra Labs in 2003. History Pyra was co-founded by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan. The company's first product, also named "Pyra", was a web ...
, he participated in the development of early versions of
Blogger 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 s ...
. In 2001, he worked briefly for KnowNow and
Bitzi Bitzi was a website, operating from 2001 to 2013, where volunteers shared reports about any kind of digital file, with identifying metadata, commentary, and other ratings. Information contributed and rated by volunteers was compiled into the ''B ...
. Haughey then relocated to
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
, and from 2002 to 2005 served as creative director at
Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
. In 1999, Haughey launched
MetaFilter MetaFilter, known as MeFi to its members, is a general-interest community weblog, founded in 1999 and based in the United States, featuring links to content that users have discovered on the web. Since 2003, it has included the popular question-a ...
, a community
weblog 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 ...
and
internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
, which he programmed himself using
Macromedia Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe Systems ...
ColdFusion Adobe ColdFusion is a commercial rapid web-application development computing platform created by J. J. Allaire in 1995. (The programming language used with that platform is also commonly called ColdFusion, though is more accurately known as CF ...
and
Microsoft SQL Server Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of storing and retrieving data as requested by other software applications—which ma ...
. This paper was completed by Hasan, a Master's of Science candidate, for a graduate class in e-communitie

/ref> In March 2015, Haughey announced he would be stepping down from day to day management of Metafilter to take on a role as Senior Content Director at Slack (software), Slack, leaving primary management and operation duties of Metafilter to long-time moderator Josh Millard. In July 2017, he transferred the ownership of Metafilter to Millard. Haughey was featured on the front cover of the May 2001 issue of
Brill's Content Steven Brill (born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer, journalist, and entrepreneur who founded monthly magazine ''The American Lawyer'' and cable channel Court TV. He is the author of the best-selling book, ''Tailspin: The People and Force ...
, illustrating the cover story "Human Portals". MetaFilter was a project he started when there were only "30 or so"
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 ...
s, and he felt that finding "one or two links a day" personally was not enough content, but a blog with four or five people could do better. Haughey had to contribute many of the early posts until "a few hundred people showed up and we had something good." MetaFilter has since been described as "one of the web's most successful communities". Haughey credits the site's "strong sense of community" for its success, unlike websites that offer social incentives such as
karma Karma (; sa, कर्म}, ; pi, kamma, italic=yes) in Sanskrit means an action, work, or deed, and its effect or consequences. In Indian religions, the term more specifically refers to a principle of cause and effect, often descriptivel ...
. Haughey has a personal weblog called ''A Whole Lotta Nothing'' and a
photoblog A photoblog (or photolog) is a form of photo sharing and publishing in the format of a blog. It differs from a blog through the predominant use of and focus on photographs rather than text. Photoblogging (the action of posting photos to a photob ...
titled ''Ten Years of My Life'', in which he records daily photographs, many of himself. ''Ten Years'' was named 3rd-best photo blog by ''
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' in 2004. On his personal blog, he was noted for starting an
internet meme An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...
when he annotated
Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...
images of his hometown. He has helped build MetaFilter workalikes such as SportsFilter and helped instigate the5k.org. Haughey has also ventured into
niche blogging Niche blogging is the act of creating a blog with the intent of using it to market to a particular niche market. Niche blogs (also commonly referred to as "niche websites") may appeal to "geographic areas, a speciality industry, ethnic or age gro ...
; his PVRBlog (
personal video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...
blog), which he started in 2004, gained attention as the site that first published complaints over copyright protection on
TiVo TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fea ...
systems. It was also recognized as an
early adopter An early adopter or lighthouse customer is an early customer of a given company, product, or technology. The term originates from Everett M. Rogers' ''Diffusion of Innovations'' (1962). History Typically, early adopters are customers who, in ad ...
of
Google AdSense Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advert ...
text advertising, which according to Haughey allowed him to make enough income to cover his mortgage. In December 2009, Haughey auctioned off PVRBlog on eBay. Haughey had guessed that the site would sell for about $8,500, but after heavy bidding it eventually sold for $12,110 to brightfire.net of Austin, TX. Haughey has been a technical editor of several programming books, and has also contributed chapters to non-technical books in topic areas such as blogging and
online community An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
. Since 2005, Haughey has written a number of pieces for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' CIRCUITS section. In April 2007, Haughey launched the blog Fortuito.us in order to share his thoughts about supporting himself and his family through online projects. On November 12, 2009 Haughey posted to Twitter, "I passed out at home had a seizure, went to ER, did a cat scan and they found a growth. Awaiting surgery in the next week to remove it." Within hours thousands of people responded with well wishes. Surgery was planned for the following day, but postponed at the last minute. On December 29, 2009, Haughey announced that hormone therapy had shrunk the tumor to less than 50% its original size, and that prospects looked good for the tumor to shrink until "nearly disappearing". Haughey lives in McMinnville,
Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
with his wife Kay and their daughter Fiona (who has also been the subject of a photoblog, Fiona.haughey.com).


Publications

* Interviewed in ''Design for Community: The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places'', Waite Group Press (2001). * Co-author, ''We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs'', Wiley (2002) * Co-author, ''Usability: The Site Speaks for Itself'', Peer Information (2002). . * Co-author, ''We've Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture'', Perseus Books Group, 2002 * Co-author, ''Hacking
Movable Type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...
(ExtremeTech)'', Wiley (2005)


References


Further reading


Building an Online Community: Just Add Water
2001 essay by Haughey in '' Digital Web''.


External links

*
Blogging for Dollars
- convinced many bloggers to add
Google AdSense Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advert ...
to their websites.
Fortuito.usDan Benjamin's The Pipeline: Matt Haughey InterviewAn interview with Matt Haughey
on ''Notebook on Cities and Culture'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Haughey, Matthew 1972 births Living people American bloggers American computer programmers American male writers People from Placentia, California People from McMinnville, Oregon People from the San Francisco Bay Area University of California, Riverside alumni American male bloggers