Blogging ... Back in the Day
I started blogging around the mid 1990s. I first used email when I was 30. Before that, we used to write and send memos - the analogue email. They were distributed by staff from the mailroom in purpose made, reusable envelopes.
At 31, I got a job at Cap Gemini and a tech guy, Malcolm, showed me the basics of HTML. I started coding websites. I began a 30 year quest to find the perfect domain name. I created my own email accounts. I began blogging.
You can still find early versions on Wayback Machine. I wrote anonymously. Everyone did. My blogs were described as quirky and eclectic. 1
We all had blogrolls on our sites. We were voracious readers of other blogs. We commented, partly to be found too. We fell down rabbit holes of links.
It was a voyage of discovery.
Some bloggers, like Susannah Conway are still out there with a complete archive of posts. Maybe 30 years’ worth.
Others, like me, had ritual burning down of sites every 18 months or so. I’d hit a brick wall, run out of things to say, flatten everything, buy a new domain name, and start again.
Now, I wish I hadn’t but I was too busy wiping the slate clean to realise the value of my archive.
Then blogging changed. It became commercial as bloggers started creating online businesses to sell eCourses and downloads. Personal blogging lapsed.
With PKM and tools like Obsidian, there seemed to be a resurgence of interest in sharing information. Obsidian Publish sites were not so different to those original blogs. Links were back!
Scribbles, Blot.Im, Bear Blog are all contributing to a blogging renaissance, a return to those early halcyon days and the thrill of hitting publish and launching your words on to an unknown audience.
Thinking about those early days of blogging sent me in search of some of my contributions. That very first website, created in HTML, and looking remarkably similar to amazon.com back then! (View source was my friend). A post for another day - I had so much in my head. Books, references, ideas, places to go. It's so easy to dismiss our creative efforts but, in hindsight, I was doing pretty well!↩