It all began five years ago with a blog entry about a banjo.Mena

Trott, 23 of age, had recently  21   as an English major from college

and was living with her husband Ben in San Francisco, passing her time

by keeping a personal  22  diary. It was a blog about her childhood, her

pets and that sort of thing. One day, on a girly whim (少女般的突发奇

想), she wrote that she wanted to buy a banjo but her husband  23  let

her. Mena's friends and family, knowing that "Ben is the sweetest guy in

the world", recognized the  24  . But all sorts of strangers suddenly blogged back angrily, advising her to get a separate bank account, and even to leave her  25   husband. Ms Trott was livid. "Why can't people take a joke, and who are these people anyway?" she wondered.

It was the seed of a profound insight: that the era of   26  media was ending and a new era of "intimate media" had begun. Mr Trott had written some software to make it easier for his wife to  27   her blog, and they realized that other people might find it useful too. It was an instant success upon its  28   onto the Internet in 2001, and the Trotts have since built their company, called Six Apart, into the largest independent  29   of blogging tools. Ms Trott is Six Apart's president and public face, while Mr Trott runs the technical side of things. Now,   30  , Six Apart's products are used by over 30 m bloggers around the world.