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Jason McCabe Calacanis, the co-founder of Weblogs, Inc. and former Netscape GM, has announced his retirement from blogging. Jason is currently working as CEO of Mahalo.com which is a human powered search engine. He was also the editor and CEO of the Silicon Alley Reporter magazine.

His blog reads:

It’s with a heavy heart, and much consideration, that today I would like to announce my retirement from blogging.

According to him, it was a very difficult choice to make and it didn’t go easy. He said that after 5 years, he isn’t sure of any other way of being but the blog, but at some point in life you have to hang it up. This is exactly what he is doing right now. He is leaving blogging but with a few regrets.

Furthermore he says:

I know that I had made the right decision for me and my family. I am very proud of the success that we have had in blogging and I leave the game with few regrets.

He said that he is certainly going to miss blogging, his relationship with the fellow bloggers, readers, friends which he made over this period and most of all he is gona miss the comments.

Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been linked to from so many blogs over the five years, and I have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

At this point, Jason’s PR representative asked the media to go for questions. Here are the highlights of the press conference.

New York Times’ Saul Hansell: What now?

Jason: Starting today all of my thoughts will be reserved for a new medium. Something smaller, something more intimate, and something very personal: an email list. Today the email list has about 600 members, I’m going to cut it off when it reaches 750. Frankly, that’s enough more than enough people to have a conversation with. I’m going to try and build a deeper relationship with fewer people–try to get back to my roots.

Center Networks’ Allen Stern: Why Now?

Jason: That’s complicated as they say on Facebook. Let’s me try and explain my thinking.
First, please don’t take this as a condemnation of blogging. I love blogs and always will. However, I’ve done my part and I’m looking to strip it down. I’m looking for something more acoustic, something more authentic and something more private. Blogging is simply too big, too impersonal, and lacks the intimacy that drew me to it.
The "a-list" pressure, the TechMeme leaderboard debates, and constant accusations of link-baiting are now too much of a distraction. I’ve never link-baited in my entire career–I just spoke from the heart for better or worse. If people want to say honesty is link-baiting fine–that’s on them, not me. If they want to turn link-baiting into a science and dissect every detail of my posts in order to reverse engineering that’s fine, but it wont work. Link-baiting doesn’t exist to me, so trying to figure out how it’s done is a fool’s errand.
Today the blogosphere is so charged, so polarized, and so filled with haters hating that it’s simply not worth it. I’d rather watch from the sidelines and be involved in a smaller, more personal, conversation.

Daily Planet’s Clark Kent: Will you come out of retirement at some point?

Jason: No, absolutely not. This is not a Michael Jordan or Jay-Z ploy. I’m done. It’s not over one instance, and it’s not because–give me a minute [editor's note: Calacanis looked down, fighting back his emotions]–I can’t handle the pressures of being an A-list blogger. This is a very personal choice that I’ve discussed with my family, and it’s the direction we want to go. I’ve done blogging and now it’s time for the next chapter.

NBC’s Brian Williams: If you would change anything over your career would you?

Jason: Not that I can think of. Well, maybe I wouldn’t have published that story on YouTube not being a real business, or maybe I wouldn’t have wasted the energy on destroying PayPerPost… but you know, that’s all hindsight and I live in the moment for better or worse. I never said I was perfect [audience laughs]… you did.

At the end of the press conference, Jason, before leaving, hug a few acquaintances which includes Brian Alvey, Peter Rojas, Mark Cuban and Jon Miller. This made him emotional and tears came out of his eyes though he put his hand on face to cover them. The announcement was emotional and according to NBC’s William:

I can say personally I’ve experienced few things this emotional in 35 years of broadcasting.

At the end of the conference, Jason’s PR rep thanked the audience and asked everyone to respect Jason’s privacy along with his family.