Goodbye, JournalsEditor -- Hello, JournalsEditor

Hi everybody -- this is Joe,
coming at you from the land
of AIM Pages. I wanted to let you know that Editor
Jeff has moved on from his gig as Journals Editor. Here's a
message that he wanted to pass along to all of you:

"Today I join the ranks of Jon Miller, Jason
Calacanis and a number of other digital ditch-diggers whose names
history will ignore ... today is my last day at AOL.


I'm actually pretty excited about it. I came here
as a desperate freelance writer and furtive amateur blogger who may or
may not have dooced
himself -- and am leaving with polished, solid skills as a professional
blogger, content creator, and programming manager. I'm looking forward
to sharpening my writing outside of a corporate setting and going where
the day takes me for a while, and I know I'm going to end up somewhere
good.

For a few months, I've been standing at the
end of the diving board and terrified to jump. Now that the lifeguard's
blown the whistle, I can tell you that the free-fall feels fabulous.


I have learned so much here from so many incredible
people, and I really feel ready to hit that deep water where the wild
things swim.

My personal blog can be found at And I Am Not
Lying, For Real, and it's where my love lies. It's going to
get very awesome, very soon, and I encourage you folks to drop by next
time you've got some time to kill.

You guys have
been great ...

Lots of love,

Jeff
Simmermon"

Many thanks to Jeff for his hard work and
devotion to the Journals product and people, and best of luck. He'll be
missed.

As to the here and now, since I've stayed
fairly close to the Journals world, I'll be wearing both my AIM Pages
and AOL Journals blogging hats.

However, since I do
(inconveniently) require sleep, I'll be on a reduced content publishing
schedule for Magic Smoke and the Journals main
page, and may put things like the Guest Editor Picks on a
holiday break (or call up some other AOL Editors or previous Guest
Editors to help me out -- I haven't quite figured it out
yet.)

Also, Stephanie will be
your first stop for Journals product news, issues, status and fixesin
her blog, BamBam!
-- which is as it should be, since she's the Journals Product Manager,
and we usually just run to her for answers on all of the hard stuff
(and a lot of the easy stuff), anyway.

For example,
Stephanie gives us the scoop on the R10
Beta Install, which should go in on Thursday,
12/14.

In addition, other Journals team members will
be around to help talk about stuff, both in their own blogs and
here.

There's a lot of blog and other social media
planning going on for 2007, and I'm involved in a lot of it. 
We're working on some interesting stuff. In the meantime, I'll need a
little time to get caught up on Journals issues, so please bear with
us.

Thanks -- Joe

Tags: aol journals, aol journals status, journals editor