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I’ve been re-watching this last couple of nights. Triumph of the Nerds, tv show from 1996 by Robert X Cringley. I also loved his book, Accidental Empires, on which the tv series is based. Such good production and he speaks to all the main players (Gates, Jobs, Woz, et al). I also discovered recently (via Wikipedia) that Cringely was a stage name, which I hadn’t realized before. I’m not sure what he is doing now…70-ish and maybe struggling, house burned down, etc. https://youtu.be/ACt6xsMt5Uk?si=ClVjptyEoWvwg7rr

@evan Ahhh, ok. I think my brain didn’t make that connection because I always think of a URL as an address, whereas a DID is an identity. Or maybe I just need to be more alert to web witticisms!

@evan Sorry, I actually wasn’t sure if you were being serious or not I may have missed some of the context…

@evan I believe developers use it to authenticate users, etc, as it’s the canonical ID for users.

@evan Can you explain what you mean re Bluesky — I had to add my DID into my domain host when setting up my domain as URL. Or are you just saying nobody uses the DID as a public ID?

Incidentally, I also bought webtechnologynews.com when I got the .news domain. I usually prefer .coms, especially because they are very hard to get these days. But in this case I liked the newsletter tie-in with the .news domain (and Platformer and Citation Needed both use it). The .com redirects to the .news.

It’s taken me 5 issues to get the format of Web Technology News right, both content-wise and design-wise. I’m happy with it now. I also like how it complements the reporting and analysis I do for The New Stack.

As for Ghost as a platform…it’s ok, but I kind of expected more tbh. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to the flexibility and freedom that 11ty gives me with Cybercultural. But the important thing is, I own the domain (and kids, you must always use your own domain).

https://webtechnology.news/wtn-5-how-cloudflare-is-both-ai-police-and-ai-booster/

There you have it, fwiw most of you taking this poll are Web 2.0 tragics like me There's a good proportion of OGs (Old Guards or Original Gangstas, whichever you prefer). I suspect I don't have enough young 'uns following me, because I know tools like NeoCities are popular with Gen Zs in the know. I did think the 2010s would be the lowest, since that's when walled garden social media was at its horrifying peak. Not bad poll numbers, even if not on @evan's level.
https://mastodon.social/@ricmac/115113003418086356

@evan Good point, but as I noted in my post, even Blogger didn’t provide RSS feeds until sometime in 2000, so you could’ve had a Blogger blog but no RSS feed. Also RSS 0.90 and 0.91 were quite limited.

There’s a couple of days left on this poll. Note that I’m referring to blogs, i.e. linky commentary ordered by date. I think some people who have chosen 90s have been referencing GeoCities, Homestead, etc. While those services could’ve been used to run journals / weblogs, it wasn’t normally the case. By all means choose 90s if you were writing a blog on GeoCities, but just wanted to clarify that. https://mastodon.social/@ricmac/115113003418086356

Informal Friday poll: what year did you start blogging? I've put a poll with some timeframes below, but if you want to add some colour please leave a comment. As I mentioned in my post today (https://cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-1999/), I started blogging in 2002, with Radio Userland. It took me a year to start ReadWriteWeb, though

So, when did you start blogging?

@stefan Maybe @evan can run a poll for us?

@wjmaggos https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6537577/2025/08/05/espn-nfl-media-network-agreement-equity/?source=athletic_moneycall_newsletter&campaign=14264079&userId=22712631

@wjmaggos The NFL recently made a deal where it now owns 10% of ESPN! So it is operating on an entirely different level… (also says a lot about the state of mainstream media)

Of course it's a sport that goes round and round in a circle, getting nowhere and damaging the environment.
https://mstdn.social/@Mediagazer/115101620841513777

@stefan I think that's fine — especially if Automattic hasn't actually mentioned it since that 2022 post?

@stefan I agree at the start of Blaugust would be ideal. Sorry, I didn't mean to put you off celebrating on 31st though — I'd get behind that too. I actually have a relevant Cybercultural post I'm working on...

@stefan I would be in favour if you started a brand new 'day' to celebrate indie blogs, though

@stefan much I want to support this, it seems like a rather dubious 'day'. Seems like Automattic invented it in order to sell its .blog domains? All they say in the post is "Since the early 2000s, August 31st has been known as World Blog Day." -- but they provide no link as evidence of that claim? https://my.blog/2022/08/25/what-is-world-blog-day-and-how-can-you-celebrate/

(And yes, I wouldn't so suspicious of Automattic if it weren't for Matt Mullenweg's antics in recent times. But, I am now...)