The block button is a wonderful invention, but apparently the blocked person’s content stays attached to your posts on both Mastodon and Bluesky. I understand the technical reasons for this, but wouldn’t it be great to add a tag to their inane comments: “This individual is a turd and has been blocked by the person who started this thread.” Maybe a feature request for Mastodon?
I'm curious what the W3C means by "re-engage" and "new audiences" here: "We have refreshed our logo to reflect the new type of organization we have become — an organization that wants to re-engage with our community, and reach new audiences."
I *hope* they mean engage on truly open, web-loving platforms — like Mastodon and Bluesky. And of course audiences that may not be well-served by internet access right now (i.e. out in the real world).
1/x One of the things I liked about Web 2.0 was that you could build a following as a techno-optimist blogger. I mean in the sense that you could be passionate about a technology — the web, in my case — and people wanted to get behind that. Now yes, folks like me *should’ve* been a tad more critical. But I loved writing about the opportunities the web presented at that time. These days, your best bet to build a following in tech journalism is by being AGAINST something — AI, crypto, whatever.
In a post by Chrome’s GM, she said: “The browser is no longer just a window to the web; it’s an intelligent partner that learns and adapts to your needs.”
I’d suggest Google is now closing the curtains on that window to the web. Sure, you can still open the curtains if you want to — Google isn’t preventing you from doing that. But from now on, I suspect most users will be content to stay indoors and let their AI agents surf the web for them. (Me, I’m opening those freaking curtains!)
Alright, buckle up internet history fans: we've come to the RSS Format Wars! The year 2000 was when RSS got forked into 2 different protocols: Dave Winer's RSS 0.92 and the RDF-based RSS 1.0. What's remarkable, looking back, is that the top bloggers of the day — Kottke, CamWorld, Rebecca Blood, Brad Graham, and others — still weren't using RSS by the end of that year. But they *were* building blogrolls. https://cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-2000/#InternetHistory#RSS
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!
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 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?
Founder of ReadWriteWeb (2003–2012). Now publishing Web Technology News, a weekly briefing on the Web’s future: infrastructure, open networks, AI → https://webtechnology.newsTech journalist @ The New Stack · Internet historian @ https://cybercultural.comAlt: @classicweb (screenshots of the early Web) · 🥝 in 🇬🇧