Notices by Richard MacManus (ricmac@mastodon.social)

In Web Technology News this week, I look at the emerging agentic web. Plus, news and takes in the usual 3 categories: web platform, open social web, Web + AI. https://webtechnology.news/wtn-6-welcome-humans-and-bots-to-the-agentic-web/

Fedi folk featured in this week's WTN: @timbl, @w3c, @caseynewton, @thisismissem, @laurenshof, @quillmatiq & @snarfed.org's Bridgy Fed, @gaberivera, @simon, @arstechnica, @medienbaecker

p.s. If you're a webhead and want to keep up with web tech news, check the end of the post for subscribe options.

OMG, I just discovered I got a mention in Tim Berners-Lee’s memoir!! Totally unexpected. Ok, he spelled my name wrong, but that doesn’t matter :) The read-write web lives on!

I'm working on my next Cybercultural post, about blogging/RSS in 2000 (following on from my 1999 post: https://cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-1999/). An open question: I'm trying to pin down when "blogroll" became a term. Google tells me Doc Searls used "blogrolling" in Dec 2000: https://web.archive.org/web/20010126064700/http://doc.weblogs.com/2000/12/17

Anyone have other references? I've looked at copies of Kottke.org, CamWorld et al from late-2000, but blogroll wasn't a used term then as far as I can tell. I suspect it was 2001, but if you have pointers... 🙏

@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?

@Gargron I hear you. If you try and argue the point on Bluesky, you get called a nerd 🤷

I think this is a fair statement, right? #Threads #FakeFediverse

Anyone have the answer to Rob's question for his project, https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/ ?
https://discuss.systems/@ricci/115165575167627371

@buttondown https://bookshop.org/p/books/bubble-blog-from-outsider-to-insider-in-silicon-valley-s-web-2-0-revolution-richard-macmanus/7b55c18959512c81

By 1999, Microsoft had vanquished Netscape in the browser war, Google was starting to show up competing search engines, and Napster and Blogger had arrived to shake up our culture. https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1999/ #InternetHistory

Author's note: if you read and enjoy my article, don't just 'like' it — please boost or share it on the web another way. Indie bloggers can no longer rely on Google or other big tech companies for attention, so human curation is what it's all about (again). 🙏

In another 15 years, Instagram will introduce “links” — an innovative new way to connect with “websites”. https://www.theverge.com/news/769460/instagram-ipad-app-launch-reels

Slopaganda, hehe. That word will enter my mind whenever I am browsing X (for work purposes, you understand). https://mastodon.social/@adactio/115146051921156179

“Why would anybody start a website?” https://daverupert.com/2025/09/why-would-anybody-start-a-website/

Lots of great reasons to start a website in 2025, but admittedly the ability to earn a living from it is not one of them.

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/

The latest issue of Web Technology News is out: https://webtechnology.news/wtn-5-how-cloudflare-is-both-ai-police-and-ai-booster/

As usual, there are 3 sections:
- web platform
- open social web
- Web + AI

Fedi folks mentioned: @marypcbuk, @slightlyoff, @jensimmons, @tomayac, @boris, @conno_r, @box464, @pfefferle, @Sarahp, @scottros, @sia (who gets the coveted 'one more thing' spot).

It's a weekly newsletter, all about web tech, and subscribe options are: email, RSS, Mastodon @feed, Bluesky. Email subscribers can leave comments, blog-style.

If you search for “fediverse” on Threads, it’s mostly confused users wondering why they are sharing to the fediverse (pressed a strange button?). But there are also people *blaming Mastodon* for Meta’s failure to implement full fediverse.

So apparently "Blueskyism" is a word, and it has heavy political connotations according to this post by Tim Onion. Ultimately I blame X/Twitter for politicising what social media app you use, but I don't like the idea of being painted as a certain type of political person based on using Bluesky. I don't feel like that's the case on Mastodon (altho I am willing to wear the "nerd" label than some on Bluesky put on Mastodon users...perhaps because I am actually a nerd)