News of Brickman's death prompted a flurry of e-mail messages around the country, as well as gatherings in San Francisco and New York on Wednesday, where friends and colleagues shared stories about the well-respected journalist.

Brickman, who most recently worked as managing editor of broadband services for NBCi, covered the Net in its early days. In 1995, he began writing about the Internet for Interactive Age, the precursor to InternetWeek. He then became one of the first journalists to use the Internet to cover the Internet, with his creation of Interactive Age Digital, a Web site that he updated daily with about five one- to two-paragraph stories.

Brickman led the way in harnessing the Internet's multimedia potential by launching CMPnet's TechWeb Today in 1998. The daily Internet broadcast combined video, audio and text to deliver technology news and analysis.

"He was a true pioneer in online journalism and Internet media," Rob Glaser, chairman and CEO of RealNetworks (RNWK) , said in a statement. RealNetworks' RealPlayer G2 powered TechWeb Today.

The Microsoft (MSFT) trial was something of a watershed story for Brickman, said Jeff Pundyk, his editor at TechWeb, now in charge of operations at Zwirl.com in New York. "He was really interested in using that [story] as a way to push what you could do with audio and video," Pundyk says. "He had reporters who were used to writing walking around with video cameras and with tape recorders. He had producers who were used to doing HTML learning how to edit."

Brickman grew up in Palo Alto, Calif., and went to college at the University of California at Berkeley. His career began in broadcasting and included stints as a producer for CBS (CBS) and as a political reporter.

At a time when other reporters covering the Internet wrote about new product announcements, Brickman took a different approach. "Gary was not a technologist. He was interested in the people and the politics," Pundyk says. "He applied the eye of a political correspondent to the coverage of the Internet industry."

A small man who used a wheelchair to get around, Brickman never let his disability get in the way of attending trade shows and news events all over the country. "His ability to overcome daunting physical disabilities through sheer willpower was nothing short of heroic," Glaser says. The nature of Brickman's disability is unknown.

Brickman regularly mixed with the movers and shakers in Internet and political circles, from San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to top Internet executives like Glaser. But as someone with a knack for spotting talent, he also spent considerable time in the recruiting mode. So it came as no surprise to Pundyk that many of the e-mails he received following Brickman's death were from people whom Brickman had mentored.

"A lot of people in the e-mails said, 'He gave me my start,' or 'He never gave up on me,'" Pundyk says.

— Ronna Abramson