The First Blog Post? Dec. 1941

Wall St. Journal 1.0 began in 1889 as a source of market news for the 200,000 people who were then the only private investors in the U.S., Wall St Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz, told the Critical Issues Forum of the Council of PR Firms today.

Wall St. Journal 2.0 started in December 1941, with the headline "War With Japan Means Industrial Revolution in the U.S." That story, which offered analysis and perspective instead of just news, "was done in half an hour... opinionated, unedited, and fast." If that doesn't sound like a lot of blog posts, tell me what does.

Crovitz promised that Wall St Journal 3.0 will debut in January 2007 with a new look and features that better integrate online and offline. It aims, he says, to be the first print newspaper to recognize how we look at news online.

The forum, which featured "table leaders", including me, was supposed to provide a non-traditional way to run a conference. But it turned out to be a bunch of 5-minute presentations and no chance for real interaction until the Princeton Club's surprisingly awful lunch.