About Mark Blair
Mark Blair is a Website architect, Internet strategist and techno-sociologist. In 1983, as a young teenager, he first became interested in the vast potential for computer facilitated communication while immersed in the world of bulletin board systems (BBS). Later that year, he programmed his own small BBS in Microsoft BASIC that people could use from across Sonoma County to dial in and post messages for other people on his computer. The whole system ran from a floppy disk in 64k of memory – just a little more space than is consumed by this web page.
This initial interest in the potential ways that people could communicate via computers has fueled his professional interests throughout his life.
In 1993, he earned his degree in Sociology at Sonoma State University, with an emphasis on researching the impact of emerging Internet technologies upon social systems. His final thesis, which predates the explosion of the Web onto the cultural scene, explored the social dynamics of Internet newsgroups – then the cornerstone of the “social Internet.”
In 1995, he founded The SocioWeb, one of the Internet’s premier directories of sociological websites, frequently ranked as the #1 website in the Yahoo! search results for “sociology”.
Mark cofounded Pacific Web of Sonoma County with longtime friend Matt Walker in 1996. He eventually obtained full ownership of the company in 2004.
To commemorate Pacific Web’s 10th year of business, Mark retired the name “Pacific Web” and recast the company as Blairworks, in a desire to better reflect his personal commitment and involvement in each of the services that the company provides and build a foundation for the next decade.
Mark has a particular fondness for coffee and can often be found tunneling into the Blairworks network from cafes in Cotati or throughout the rest of Sonoma County. He also is an avid traveller and works out of his "other" home office in his wife's hometown of Sarajevo upon occasion. He is actively involved in the production of a number of travel related websites, including a guide to luxury hotels in San Francisco and the upcoming DiscoverBosnia.com.