Daniel Rubin at the Philly Inquirer makes the convincing case that Ben Franklin, who celebrated his 300th birthday yesterday, was the first blogger:

Not so far a stretch, really. He pamphleteered, self-published, delivered colonial dish, news and opinion, sampled other’s work and remixed it into his own mash.

He wrote anonymously, or under pseudonyms. Instead of posting daily, he squirreled away his words and published them in an almanac.

Doesn’t this sound familiar?