You may have noticed the new banner. My photo is from Skype blogger in chief Jaanus Kase's side trip to Oakland, California, earlier this year. Jaanus and I had lunch at Everett & Jones near the water. I wasn't impressed by the barbeque that time but it was great to finally meet Jaanus and talk enterprise blogging, online community, and social software. In the photo, Jaanus is taking a picture of cargo railcars going to the Port of Oakland through the Jack London Square neighborhood. Oakland is a major cargo hub, the fourth busiest container port in the United States.

Railroad rights-of-way made it possible for the telegraph network to spread across North America in the 19th century (like Skype on top of the Internets). At some point Western Union lost its dependency on the railroads, entrenched its monopoly, and lobbied Washington to protect it (like the phone and cable companies which followed). Meanwhile, the railroads developed standards so cars from one railroad could run on all the tracks. They later worked with truck and sea shippers to standardize the cargo container (packets for atoms). Containers slashed shipping costs. Now globalization is the standard in a world economy. And a bottle of Stormhoek, South African blogging wine can be shipped to California for less than a euro.

The masthead change is part of a long list of small site improvements. One side effect: you can read SJ on many mobile phone browsers. 

Help me rotate the photo a few times every month. When you have a snapshot and a story, post it to flickr, tag it "skypejournal", and let me know via email or Skype.