Richard MacManus

Head of Editorial at Latent Space, a leading AI engineering publication · Internet historian at cybercultural.com · Founded ReadWriteWeb (2003–2012) · 🥝 in 🇬🇧

Personal website: https://ricmac.org
Latent Space (work): https://www.latent.space
Internet history blog: https://cybercultural.com
Alt a/c: Classic Web (npub13lc…vge2)

Public Key

npub138706f676w2597m7nh4m2awvuj376awntxr8jt73gfrhwrjuafkqcjvefs

NIP-05 Address

ricmac_at_mastodon.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsgnl8aya0d892zldlfm6a4whxwfgldwhf4npne9lg5y3mhpeww5mqpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsazfzqs

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub138706f676w2597m7nh4m2awvuj376awntxr8jt73gfrhwrjuafkqcjvefs

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Last Notes

2026-05-09 18:31:53 UTC

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Now they’ve discovered external style sheets.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/546/044/692/481/801/original/3dde537ba2978d3b.jpeg

2026-05-09 16:49:25 UTC

Curious find of the day: the AI community on X has seemingly re-discovered the World Wide Web, in that it now favours HTML over Markdown for “agents to communicate with us”: https://x.com/trq212/status/2052809885763747935?s=43 #AI #WhatGoesAroundComesAround

2026-03-22 19:22:21 UTC

Apparently it’s 20 years since Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet. On that same day, 21 March 2006, I was blathering on about “microcontent design” on ReadWriteWeb. This was the feeds world that web geeks like me wanted to become a reality: i.e. web standards-based feeds, using RSS/Atom, structured blogging, microformats, etc. Little did we know that Twitter would introduce the concept of proprietary feeds to the internet…and that would win out over web standards. https://web.archive.org/web/20060508071004/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microcontent_de.php

2026-03-15 10:21:05 UTC

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Very cool! This seems like something #11ty could implement, as blog posts are just Markdown files too. I have experimented with Webmentions on my 11ty blog in the past, but I felt it over-complicated my setup at the time, so I ditched it. I love the simplicity of your approach. #Eleventy

2026-03-06 12:36:39 UTC

As part of my #WebAI explorations, I've built an AI chatbot for my personal website called Ask Ricmac. Under the hood, it runs on a Cloudflare Workers backend that uses Vectorize, D1 and Workers AI. During development, I also used the WordPress MCP Adapter and Claude Desktop. In this post I explain how these pieces fit together and the role each one plays. https://ricmac.org/2026/03/06/building-ask-ricmac-my-first-experiment-in-the-web-ai-stack/

2026-03-05 19:52:21 UTC

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Surely the “I hate Bjork” comments were a great filter: I never want to speak to this person again. (I had similar conversations re being a New Zealander, except referencing Lord of the Rings rather than Bjork)

2026-02-17 14:15:35 UTC

Although the Web is technically limited in 1994, it is a fast-growing network and so curation quickly becomes a design problem. Enter Glenn Davis and his website, Cool Site of the Day. https://cybercultural.com/p/1994-cool-site-of-the-day/ #WebDesignHistory

2026-02-03 20:22:59 UTC

Open source sustainability thoughts from “Mr 11ty” @npub19vz…zmql. Love that he’s found a symbiotic commercial relationship with @npub10sl…sxrh. Looking forward to what’s next for @npub1qud…y0rz. https://overcast.fm/+AA-SZeh8B8A

2026-01-28 15:23:09 UTC

Continuing Cybercultural's history of web design, we're still in 1993 but now we come to perhaps the world's first web designer: Jennifer Niederst Robbins. She designed O'Reilly's Global Network Navigator (GNN), which aimed to be an "online magazine". Not easy when you can't even control the colors on a web page! https://cybercultural.com/p/1993-global-network-navigator/ #WebDesignHistory

2026-01-21 14:36:54 UTC

In 1993, web design didn't really exist — you couldn't even change the background color of your web page from grey. But Mosaic launched the first era of visual web design with the IMG tag, and soon after an MTV VJ (@npub1fmx…wp74) improbably created one of the first commercial websites. https://cybercultural.com/p/1993-mtv-internet/ #WebDesignHistory

2026-01-15 14:24:58 UTC

RE: https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/115899500197045760
Both Wikipedia and Drupal began on 15 January 2001. What an amazing day for the open web.
#note1pqj…00g8

2026-01-13 14:44:41 UTC

Today I'm launching season 5 of Cybercultural: the history of web design from 1993 till 2012. It will be a celebration of the peak years of personal websites and blogs! My intro post explains the structure and a few of the main themes I'll be exploring (e.g. personal web design vs platform peer pressure). I invite you to subscribe now for weekly updates via email or RSS. https://cybercultural.com/p/history-of-web-design/ #WebDesignHistory

2026-01-10 11:54:53 UTC

Open question: how do tech folks keep track of interesting events and conferences you might want to attend. Back in Web 2.0, Upcoming was great for this. I know @npub15x0…2g26 resurrected it several years ago, but not sure if it’s currently maintained (it seems to only have a Twitter login option, for example). Is there an Upcoming for the fediverse? Or somewhere else to see what events e.g. @npub13za…8j89 is going to this year? I.e. a social events app that isn’t Twitter-based (Bluesky would be ok tho).

2026-01-08 10:53:35 UTC

To commemorate the 79th anniversary of David Bowie's birth & nearly the 10th anniversary of his passing, I've written a mini-history of Bowie's website from 2004 to 2016. BowieNet, his pioneering social network, had basically been discontinued. But when his website did reactivate in 2013, Bowie conspicuously shunned social media ("Dropped my cell phone down below"). We can learn a lot from him. https://cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-2004-2016/ #BowieForever 👨‍🎤

2026-01-07 12:44:35 UTC

Hooray for all of us little mammals! (and the Mastodon instances, big and small)
"When the get-rich-quick folks left the scene, those of us who remained, who truly loved the web as a creative and expressive medium, found a ton of opportunity in being the little mammals amidst the sad dinosaurs trying to find funding for meteor dot com." https://www.anildash.com/2026/01/06/500k-tech-workers-laid-off/ by @npub16sj…va89

2025-12-29 11:13:23 UTC

Over the holidays I’ve been reorganizing my RSS reader. Firstly, I migrated from Feedly to Feedbin (and am also using NetNewsWire as my iOS app). That’s all thanks to the suggestions I got in a previous Mastodon thread. Secondly, I have been pruning my feeds…some had become inactive over the past several years, either a) because the feed URL changed, or b) because the person stopped blogging or updating their website. Latter makes me sad when they don’t seem to have moved anywhere…just stopped.

2025-12-22 16:23:38 UTC

I want to become more focused on my RSS Reader again next year. So I have been pondering if I should switch away from Feedly, which I have been using since...well *you know what* happened. It's browser-based always for me, but anyone have suggestions?
"While it's still traditional to bemoan the death of Google Reader all the way back in 2013 in any article about RSS, I'll skip the eulogy. The world of RSS apps has moved on..." https://zapier.com/blog/best-rss-feed-reader-apps/

2025-12-21 09:13:12 UTC

This is a very smart marketing ploy, to be the only non-AI browser. But it’s wise they have left the door open a little for if/when AI shrugs off the issues that currently dog it: “We will continue building a browser for curious minds, power users, researchers, and anyone who values autonomy. If AI contributes to that goal without stealing intellectual property, compromising privacy or the open web, we will use it. If it turns people into passive consumers, we will not.” https://vivaldi.com/blog/keep-exploring

2025-12-19 10:39:13 UTC

Threads current leader with the expected pathetic excuse for not fully supporting the fediverse, as it had promised: "It’s something that we’re supporting, it’s something that we’re maintaining, but it’s not the thing that we’re talking about that’s gonna help the app break out."
The "support" is already half-arsed, but that last part is telling: "not the thing that we’re talking about". No kidding. What a crock of sh*t. https://www.theverge.com/column/847806/head-of-threads-interview (paywall, but u can find full story on archive.fo)

2025-12-17 10:58:32 UTC

Big tech #cruft is something we've all gotten used to, along with all the other #enshittification. But which product has the WORST cruft? (comment if your one isn't in the list) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruft

2025-12-16 17:10:15 UTC

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that is an unexpected take from you ;) My disappointment mainly comes from Mozilla seemingly turning their attention away from the open web, which is the whole reason that org was founded in the first place — being a steward of the open web has been their raison d'être. And especially when I see Google all over the "Web AI" trend (which I do think is important), yet Mozilla seems oblivious of how the Web and AI can and should intersect.

2025-12-16 16:52:36 UTC

Seeing a lot of *sighs* about the Mozilla/Firefox news (myself included). It's a natural response when you have admired an organization for so long, and there are some common sense moves they could make to add AI features to the *open web* (a couple of words Mozilla appears to have forgotten exist), while also giving users full control to not have AI if they wish...and yet they instead go all-in on being The Trusted AI Org, or whatever their new mission statement is. Just disappointing.

2025-11-25 20:32:29 UTC

I actually started with mastodon.technology in early April 2017. But the reason was that mastodon.social wasn’t taking new users at the time. Mastodon.technology was shuttered soon after, but by then I had gone to mastodon.social (when the gates opened again). I was definitely on here by mid-2017, per this June 2017 blog post: https://web.archive.org/web/20170624064533/http://altplatform.org:80/2017/06/07/mastodon/ https://outerheaven.club/objects/b2ba1ad6-869b-4547-85cf-18634177a56c

2025-11-25 16:00:20 UTC

In the latest post in my history of blogging and RSS series, I look at the emergence of the blogosphere in 2002 — a thriving ecosystem of colourful personal sites that interconnected to each other via RSS, trackback and blogrolls. 2002 also saw the debut of RSS 2.0, Technorati and Google News. https://cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-2002/ #InternetHistory #Blogging

2025-11-18 16:07:09 UTC

This week on Cybercultural, more early-2000s Apple 🍎, including why Steve Jobs didn't want online music to go the streaming route (which of course it eventually did). https://cybercultural.com/p/ipod-2002/ #InternetHistory

2025-11-16 10:03:57 UTC

Kazuo Ishiguro, one of my favourite writers, on AI:
“I think many of us are concerned about the fact that the copyrights were completely infringed.
Our work was being taken, all my books have been taken to train AI, but if the copyrights can be respected then it can be used in a way that, say, a traditional researcher would use somebody else’s book.
Just because it’s AI, it shouldn’t be an excuse to just raid people’s intellectual property.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/kazuo-ishiguro-japanese-windsor-castle-the-king-charles-b2858339.html#

2025-11-10 22:49:08 UTC

Poll: if you had to choose one primary tech ecosystem that you belong to in 2025, which would it be? (Listed alphabetically; and comment if you consider yourself part of an ecosystem not mentioned here)

2025-10-29 18:25:51 UTC

A bigco techie I was DMing with described the current state of the web as a “tragedy of the commons” (per Wikipedia: “…if many people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource, such as a pasture, they will tend to overuse it and may end up destroying its value altogether”).
I think this is actually a better description of now than “enshittification”; because if creative people stop publishing to the web, that depletes the “pasture”. Human creativity & passion is no longer valued.

2025-10-29 14:42:53 UTC

Continuing my history of blogging and RSS series, I look at 2001: the year of warblogs, Movable Type and Blogdex. I see '01 as a transition year for blogging, in which it shifts from personal journaling to a more journalistic approach (although many personal bloggers resented the influx of warbloggers). There are lots of great 2001 screenshots in this post, so I hope you enjoy it. https://cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-2001/ #InternetHistory #Blogging

2025-10-28 11:14:38 UTC

I know people will be piling on about Grokipedia, but hilariously its definition of Web 2.0 seems to be much better than Wikipedia's. On Grokipedia's page, there's a great description of misinformation on platforms like X and Facebook. Wikipedia does not mention any of that.
Refs:
1. https://grokipedia.com/page/Web_2.0#misinformation-propagation-and-echo-chambers
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
(p.s. Grokipedia cites my internet history website Cybercultural.com twice, whereas Wikipedia ignores it! C'mon Wikipedia, get with it.)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/451/499/403/593/915/original/3b857524ec219534.png

2025-10-24 15:16:32 UTC

A new project out of MIT is building open, decentralized infrastructure for AI agents as an alternative to proprietary platforms. As I note in the post, shades of the fediverse here! https://thenewstack.io/how-mits-project-nanda-aims-to-decentralize-ai-agents/

2025-10-21 13:52:41 UTC

Today, October 21, 2025, there is a rally in San Francisco in support of @npub1umd…wfr7. Tomorrow, the Internet Archive is having a party to celebrate 1 trillion webpages archived. To show my appreciation for their most famous creation, the Wayback Machine, this week's Cybercultural post takes you back 24 years to its launch. Thank-you @npub1ftl…3e6s and long live the Internet Archive! https://cybercultural.com/p/wayback-machine-launch-2001/ #InternetHistory

2025-10-14 13:27:58 UTC

This week on Cybercultural, I look back on Steve Jobs' January 2001 keynote at Macworld SF, when he announced iTunes and Apple's new "digital hub" concept. This was pre-iPod and of course pre-iPhone. The new strategy set the company up for a renaissance in the 21st century, when *everything* became digital. https://cybercultural.com/p/itunes-launch-2001/ #InternetHistory #ClassicApple

2025-10-10 14:54:27 UTC

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is there an account on the fediverse we can follow? I couldn't find one in search.

2025-10-08 11:13:19 UTC

Let's take a trip back to the year 2000, 25 long internet years ago. A year in which Flash websites proliferate, blogging expands, social news sites like Slashdot gain influence — all of this while the dot-com bubble slowly deflates and Napster dominates headlines. https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-2000/ #InternetHistory
(special thanks to @npub1uax…25kn & @npub18dr…hhph for suggesting Homestar Runner, the perfect Flash website suggestion for that year!)

2025-10-07 14:33:48 UTC

Starter packs coming to Mastodon 👀 https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/10/our-ideas-about-packs/

2025-10-01 13:57:23 UTC

This week on Cybercultural, let's re-live the Year of Napster: Shawn Fanning wearing a Metallica shirt to the 2000 MTV Awards, Lars Ulrich testifying to Senate and whining to the media (but in retrospect, was he right after all?!), Judge Patel calling Napster a monster, the media dreaming of a "heavenly jukebox", and — amid it all — a new legal alternative quietly emerges: SoundJam (soon to be known as iTunes). https://cybercultural.com/p/napster-itunes-2000/ #InternetHistory #Napster #iTunes

2025-09-26 16:32:32 UTC

In this week's Web Technology News, I discuss my interview with Evan You — the creator of Vite and (I'm suggesting) one of the new rock stars of web development. https://webtechnology.news/wtn-8-the-new-rock-stars-of-web-development/
As usual, you'll also find other news in these 3 categories: Web Platform, Open Social Web, Web + AI.
Fedi folk featured in this week's newsletter: @npub15z3…0xrp, @npub1ufh…mjqv, [@_elena](https://mastodon.social/@_elena ), @npub1dgj…m5xf, @npub1j2m…ngt0, @npub1trr…wc45
You can sign up to WTN via email and/or follow [@feed](https://webtechnology.news/ ) here on Mastodon.

2025-09-25 19:21:25 UTC

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I don’t disagree, but didn’t we all say the same thing about Mullenweg during the WordPress saga? If anything, he seems to have entrenched his power in the WP community now. It’s quite worrying that “open source” is turning into the same thing social media became.

2025-09-19 18:24:55 UTC

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Oh, I had no idea about Anita :( I did google her while I was writing the Cybercultural post, to see what she was doing now. But I didn’t find anything. That’s sad to hear.

2025-09-19 18:13:08 UTC

For my 'one more thing' on WTN this week ( [@feed](https://webtechnology.news/ ) ) I highlighted some lovely web community action from 2000. The image attached is from Anita Rowland's weblog that year, describing a meetup with fellow Seattle bloggers (2 legendary bloggers, @npub1prs…eh8y and @npub19re…ftse, were among them). It's a reminder that the web is all about human connection — and we should never forget that. https://webtechnology.news/wtn-7-chrome-becomes-an-ai-browser-with-agents-to-come/
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/232/327/130/428/327/original/d9e6315042da4641.jpeg

2025-09-18 17:44:53 UTC

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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!)

2025-09-18 17:30:13 UTC

It’s happened: Google Chrome is now an AI browser https://thenewstack.io/chrome-switches-on-ai-the-future-of-browsing-begins-now/

2025-09-18 15:53:15 UTC

I think of myself as an early adoptor on internet tech, but there is one technology I have never tried and never wish to, either: AirPods. I hate sticking things into my ears. I'm an 'over the ear' headphones guy and I don't see that changing.
(p.s. I will probably add Meta's AR glasses to my 'never gonna use' list, but mainly because I have no desire to put Facebook on my face!)

2025-09-17 14:06:30 UTC

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

2025-09-14 15:12:21 UTC

TBL on the founding of WHATWG, which now controls the HTML standard (clearly he was not a fan, at least initially).
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/203/292/563/671/229/original/8d3c106de4f8a6bc.jpeg

2025-09-11 21:40:22 UTC

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

2025-09-08 10:06:01 UTC

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

2025-09-05 18:19:14 UTC

I think this is a fair statement, right? #Threads #FakeFediverse
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/153/066/627/304/066/original/b37653376a6839fb.jpeg

2025-09-04 11:43:47 UTC

I just checked my latest Google Search Console report for Cybercultural. Couple of notable trends, that I think apply to other indie websites too:
1. Google has totally turned off Google Discover traffic for my site over the past 3 months. I never got big traffic from it, but at least my posts had a chance before. I suspect Google's algo has pivoted Discover traffic to larger sites, to keep them quiet.
2. Clicks per impression 0.50% (was 2.25% at peak). This is AI Overviews/Mode at play #SEO

2025-09-03 13:41:35 UTC

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). 🙏

2025-09-02 11:39:13 UTC

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)
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/134/506/731/492/569/original/3472babaeb136a0d.png

2025-08-30 12:13:26 UTC

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

2025-08-29 18:20:49 UTC

It’s all a bit serious on the socials today. Anyone got a good tv show recommendation? I recently finished ‘Dept Q’, which I enjoyed. I binged all of ‘Halt and Catch Fire’ before that. ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ was another fave this year. I’m up to date with ‘Severence’. What else is out there to binge on a Friday evening with a glass of vino?

2025-08-29 16:30:37 UTC

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?

2025-08-27 16:38:49 UTC

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

2025-08-27 16:38:17 UTC

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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)

2025-08-27 16:21:02 UTC

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

2025-08-21 10:02:33 UTC

Ghost or Substack? Eleventy or WordPress? Newsletter or blog...or online magazine? There are a lot of choices these days in online publishing, so I've detailed my own recent experiences in this post.
I discuss how I've found Ghost's fediverse integration so far (there are issues, but I'm fully supportive), why you *shouldn't* choose Substack, why I find @npub1qud…y0rz such a joy, and why #WordPress is in desparate need of modernization. https://ricmac.org/2025/08/21/ghost-substack-eleventy-wordpress/

2025-08-19 18:33:03 UTC

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The maximum I can renew my personal website domain for is 10 years, at least on Namecheap which I use. I know people have said this before, but you should be able to purchase a permanent license for certain domains (like your personal one, or a professional domain).

2025-08-19 18:27:39 UTC

I was alerted to this by a commenter, but sadly Molly’s old homepage has now been taken over by some scumbag crypto promoter (Molly died in September 2023). This is something all of us have to think about, as one’s relatives most likely aren’t web professionals and so domains will slip away over time. Makes me really angry, but it’s another thing we should find solutions for on the indie web — how to keep important domains going posthumously. https://indieweb.social/@classicweb/115051509469989369

2025-08-19 17:09:44 UTC

I admit, I am fascinated by how X users see the internet. I think some of them genuinely don’t know what websites are.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/115/056/534/054/725/202/original/fde4d0f6654d6314.jpeg

2025-08-12 16:12:30 UTC

When Perplexity buys Chrome, browsing will henceforth be called "hoovering" https://www.wsj.com/tech/perplexity-ai-google-chrome-offer-5ddb7a22?st=7gNiSR

2025-08-11 12:28:51 UTC

Gary Marcus is not impressed. https://open.substack.com/pub/garymarcus/p/gpt-5-overdue-overhyped-and-underwhelming?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

2025-08-09 18:49:06 UTC

I disagree with the whole premise of this article (which btw is far too long — it’s clearly been written for machines). “But the web isn’t human-first anymore,” he writes. WRONG. That’s what big tech wants you to believe. My websites are written for humans. Ok, I accept I need to figure out how to make a living from that in this AI era…but the Web is human-first for me, and always will be. That’s non-negotiable.
Ref: The web isn’t URL-shaped anymore - Jono Alderson https://www.jonoalderson.com/conjecture/url-shaped-web/

2025-08-06 22:11:02 UTC

Tim Berners-Lee on 6 August 1991:
“The WWW project was started to allow high energy physicists to share data, news, and documentation. We are very interested in spreading the web to other areas, and having gateway servers for other data. Collaborators welcome!”
https://cybercultural.com/p/1991-tim-berners-lee-trys-to-convert-the-hypertext-faithful/
Notice he said collaborators and not parasites (yes, I mean AI, but also human SEO parasites). With the open social web, we have a chance for human collaboration again.

2025-08-04 12:40:14 UTC

If by “hard tech” they mean “hard to stomach”, that would be more accurate. I do agree this is absolutely the next big era after Web 2.0, and I find AI tools to be generally useful, but the hype (exemplified by X users), callousness of big cos (massive job losses, and also what Google is doing to publishers) and the dehumanization around this tech is all very worrying. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/ai-silicon-valley-hard-tech.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bk8.t0w-.jiIF3FBqqrfO&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

2025-07-30 21:55:11 UTC

The Web is made of people…who increasingly get tricked into viewing slop by AI. https://mastodon.social/@Sarahp/114944354954013310

2025-07-30 13:37:26 UTC

I take a look at how Online Identity has evolved through the years, from the fluid identities of BowieWorld to the neutered identity culture that Facebook introduced in the 2000s. David Bowie himself played with virtual personas (how could he not?!) and I also look at a 1999 book by US sociologist Sherry Turkle. https://cybercultural.com/p/online-identity-bowieworld-1999/ #InternetHistory #OnlineIdentity

2025-07-24 12:39:58 UTC

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There’s no easy answer to this; some of the most prominent people on the fediverse still happily use X (via Posse, usually). So in the end, you have to follow your own ethical code. For me, Bluesky and LinkedIn are still ok, but I have drawn a line at using X and Threads. #YMMV

2025-07-24 10:20:15 UTC

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And then I clicked to another webpage, entitled "Q2 earnings call: CEO’s remarks". Do you know how many times the Web was mentioned? Zero. I lost count of how many times AI was mentioned. So I guess we are in the *zero-web* era of Google now :( https://blog.google/inside-google/message-ceo/alphabet-earnings-q2-2025/

2025-07-24 10:11:14 UTC

Google's latest earnings is currently the top story on @npub1t0q…ayut. I clicked on the link (how old-fashioned of me), and noted this statement from Sundar Pichai: "Search delivered double-digit revenue growth, and our new features, like AI Overviews and AI Mode, are performing well."
"Performing well" for whom? Not the users, not the publishers, and not the WEB. But clearly, performing well for Alphabet Inc & its shareholders :/
Google used to be focused on web users.
https://www.techmeme.com/250723/p31#a250723p31

2025-07-19 19:00:47 UTC

Out of sheer boredom on a Saturday post-dinner, I opened up Threads (I no longer post there) and saw this cry for help. Poor bastards… #MetaWorld #AOLvibes
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/881/439/154/776/107/original/ef6c4be74e7e152e.jpeg

2025-07-18 12:29:10 UTC

“For now, many of us still approach A.I. as outsiders — nonnative users, shaped by analog habits, capable of seeing the difference between now and then. But the generation growing up with A.I. will learn to think and write in its shadow. For them, the chatbot won’t be a tool to discover — as Netscape was for me — but part of the operating system itself. And that shift, from novelty to norm, is the profound transformation we’re only beginning to grapple with.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/opinion/ai-chatgpt-school.html?unlocked_article_code=1.XU8.me9q.tCp-b3-fCcmC&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

2025-07-10 14:13:01 UTC

Oh no…now Meta is automatically sharing our private messages to its AI. As far as I can tell, you can only turn it off for each message thread, one at a time (and there seems to be no option to turn it off *at all* for group threads!). Yet another privacy disaster from Facebook.
I use Messenger btw for family and non-tech friends, so don’t (ahem) shoot the messenger.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/829/346/673/333/671/original/27f7a5054f266e9d.jpeg
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/829/346/768/141/579/original/c47ae4aae9af8c8c.jpeg

2025-07-10 13:51:02 UTC

One of the ways to get Mastodon more visibility across the normieverse is to add your link to @npub1t0q…ayut. e.g. I requested that one of my Mastodon posts about the OpenAI browser news be added (I thought it added good context) and within a minute or two it was up there. It's a small way to promote the fediverse, but it helps when people see more Mastodon (or indeed indie blog) links on Techmeme. Note: the button, on the bottom-right, only displays on the desktop version of Techmeme (not mobile).
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/829/259/936/375/863/original/4dff3a8a3b984240.png

2025-07-10 10:25:02 UTC

Ok, here we go with the full-on "AI browser" competition. Perplexity has announced its new browser Comet, which founder Aravind Srinivas says "powers a shift from browsing to thinking." I interviewed Srinivas in January 2024, when he told me he was Larry Page's biggest fan. Looks like he's fast-tracking the Google playbook with all that VC $$ — going from chatbot to search engine & now browser, all in the space of 18 months or so.
ref: https://x.com/AravSrinivas/status/1942968741538537549
https://thenewstack.io/more-than-an-openai-wrapper-perplexity-pivots-to-open-source/

2025-07-09 11:16:50 UTC

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Came across this video today of how search worked in Internet Explorer 4 in 1998; it was a big ol' button that you pressed and it opened up in a frame on the left. You can see AltaVista in action here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaHR2mbnIjA (via Computer Chronicles, link on the YouTube page)

2025-07-08 22:22:32 UTC

Don’t fall for this again, hundreds of millions of people. https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/07/threads-is-nearing-xs-daily-app-users-new-data-shows/
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/819/946/796/584/057/original/9d13bc70bfa497eb.mp4

2025-07-08 15:25:15 UTC

Since my latest Cybercultural post is about search, I checked out my website's traffic sources so far this year. "Direct" is #1, which could mean a number of sources — incl Mastodon, which unfortunately doesn't usually provide referral data (I wish it would). The only other "social" sources in top 10 are Bluesky and LinkedIn. Threads & Facebook both very low (no surprise!). I wish Flipboard was higher, tbh. ChatGPT & Perplexity do send some traffic...actually ChatGPT wasn't too bad. #YMMV
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/818/289/320/565/148/original/2196d89595ee9693.png

2025-07-08 14:32:49 UTC

As search engines in 2025 shift from providing links to (AI) answers — and all the angst that is causing web publishers — I thought I'd take a look at what search engines were like in 1998...one year before Google became popular. At that time search was seen as just one part of the portal experience. But little did AltaVista know, it wouldn't be the center of attention on @npub1vew…njgt's Search Engine Watch for much longer. https://cybercultural.com/p/search-1998/ #InternetHistory #searchengines

2025-07-04 12:35:13 UTC

I think we’re starting to see a breakdown of trust in some of the larger players in the open social web. Many of you didn’t trust Meta from the start about Threads; I gave them the benefit of the doubt, but it’s 100% clear to me now that Meta is not serious about federation. Likewise we see Automattic now backtracking on its promise to federate Tumblr. Perhaps this is all a sign that we need new products and new open source leaders, to add to e.g. Mastodon & Pixelfed. And new business models!

2025-07-04 05:36:16 UTC

This is the kind of stuff that finally made me quit Threads, just as I have X. Also see my recent post about the various ways Threads fails to federate at even the most basic level: https://mastodon.social/@ricmac/114744386097094353
https://mastodon.social/@toddalstrom/114783119075435828

2025-07-02 09:46:26 UTC

"As mainstream culture is imploding in on itself and can feel like a stitch up, new ways of being are bubbling up at the edges. It's more off-line - or at the very least in private online spaces. It's smaller, DIY in sensibility, and it's a safer space for its participants. Fundamentally it's unsurveilled." https://www.drownedinsound.org/why-we-might-be-witnessing-a-return-to-the-spirit-of-punk/?ref=drowned-in-sound-newsletter @npub1fdq…4maa

2025-07-01 17:59:13 UTC

“Mr. Prince said he was “deeply concerned that the incentives for content creation are dead.””
This definitely resonates with me. Sometimes I wonder why I bother spending so much of my time writing articles that fewer and fewer people read. Yes, AI is to blame, altho I also put a lot of blame on ‘traffic-throttling’ social media like X, LinkedIn, Facebook/Threads. The open web is, sadly, almost devoid of incentives for creators. This is a challenge for fediverse too.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/technology/cloudflare-ai-data.html?unlocked_article_code=1.TE8.6JAh.CFClZ2CqkmoO&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

2025-06-25 14:06:23 UTC

Threads is allegedly part of the fediverse, yet I'm nowhere near the point of being able to ask Threads users to follow my Mastodon profile. Attached is how my Mastodon profile looks over there. Some of the issues:
1. Threads users can follow Mastodon Me *only if* they themselves have turned on fediverse sharing (an arbitrary hurdle).
2. They have to exactly type my Mastodon handle.
3. You can like but not reply.
4. "Some posts may not be visible" (why?!)
5. There's no bio!
Any other hurdles?
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/744/385/973/328/016/original/4d8c1c03e6cfdd25.png

2025-06-23 12:15:51 UTC

The web is not thriving for indie publishers. We can only hope Google doesn’t lose sight of small indie websites, and how *they* can earn a living in the AI era. That was the beauty of the Web 2.0 era — there were opportunities for *everyone* to thrive. I see Google, AI companies and big publishers like Reddit thriving in this era…but surely Google knows that isn’t enough for the broader web ecosystem to thrive.
Ref: Google’s “from our point of view the web is thriving." https://c.im/@rustybrick/114732529149457285

2025-06-18 15:35:45 UTC

Looks like Threads has been hacked…
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/705/101/254/569/611/original/0bb0e88d66301609.png

2025-06-17 17:29:18 UTC

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I currently can’t even find this special freaking feed in their app…

2025-06-17 17:18:37 UTC

We are aliens from another planet. “This is certainly the most visible fediverse content has ever been inside of Threads, but the world of ActivityPub is still not a first-class citizen inside of Threads. You still have to opt-in to sharing your posts, you still have to have a separate account to connect to, and you’ll still have to go to the dedicated feed to see what’s new. (If you post something and get fediverse replies, those are still separate too.)” https://mastodon.social/@verge/114699692468491981

2025-06-16 19:07:28 UTC

What do you call your personal website these days? (if none of these options, please comment)

2025-06-16 17:55:38 UTC

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I suggest a good pair of kids headphones :)

2025-06-13 21:40:34 UTC

Updated my Tumblr (velvetsfan.com) for the first time in months…was listening to some music and wanted to post about it somewhere. I miss soup.io, which was a smaller, quirkier version of Tumblr, and where I used to post artsy-fartsy stuff that didn’t fit into my tech blogging world. Tumblr was the one that survived, but now it’s owned by one of the self-important crazy Tech Lords and so I am not so keen on using it. Is there a fedi version of Tumblr with some traction? #AskingForAFriend

2025-06-11 18:44:07 UTC

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No :( There are bit parts for women, but they are girlfriends, assistants, and one brief scene with a Sheryl Sandberg-like character. But it’s very much a sausage party…again, like the All-In Podcast.

2025-06-11 18:25:01 UTC

I watched Mountainhead over the past 2 nights (couldn’t get through it in one night, it made me too anxious!). It was ok entertainment in the end, but a bit too over-the-top for my liking. Of course you recognize the All-In Podcast crew, Musk, Altman and the rest of that lot in the 4 main characters. Maybe too close to the bone for many of us who work in tech? I enjoyed Succession a lot more, because it didn’t try so hard to be a parody. It kind of felt like sitting thru an All-In episode.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/666/130/649/803/535/original/72e245be0cec2481.jpeg

2025-06-11 14:42:12 UTC

In 1997, the first browser war began amid new internet trends like 'push' and DHTML. Meanwhile, instant messaging apps like ICQ and AIM became popular and GeoCities achieved 1 million users. https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1997/ #InternetHistory

2025-06-10 14:54:37 UTC

Here's my writeup of #FediForum, in which I ask the question: is the fediverse making meaningful progress vs. centralized platforms? The post includes [@_elena](https://mastodon.social/@_elena )'s excellent video and has discussion of @npub1urx…v0z4's presentation, Bounce (by @npub1zzy…9edy & [@snarfed.org](https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://snarfed.org/about )), Surf (by [@mike](https://flipboard.com/@mike ) & [@marci](https://flipboard.com/@marci )), Channels.org (by @npub1qm3…d0q6 & @npub1dad…y568 team), & Bandwagon (by @npub17gq…8hhz). Thx also @npub1dvx…gems & @npub1yaz…h0xs for FediForum. The headline is via Christine: "we can’t succeed without joy." https://thenewstack.io/bringing-joy-back-to-the-web-fediverse-vs-centralized-apps/

2025-06-07 17:28:28 UTC

I’m sure we will hear a lot about Bill Atkinson (RIP) over the next few days, but I want to point out the huge influence of #HyperCard on the Web. @npub1rkn…cdxd himself mentioned it in his original WWW proposal (https://cybercultural.com/p/1990-programming-the-world-wide-web/), early web browsers like ViolaWWW were modeled on HyperCard (https://cybercultural.com/p/1992-web-vs-gopher/), and even JavaScript owed a debt to it (HyperCard included an object oriented scripting language called HyperTalk; https://cybercultural.com/p/1995-the-birth-of-javascript/).

2025-06-06 14:48:57 UTC

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ah, thank-you! That seems a bit easier to remember :)

2025-06-06 14:42:08 UTC

Every time I have to google this... I guess they had to come up with something to shortcut forcing a linebreak, but it never sticks in my head. #Markdown
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/636/942/613/784/328/original/a7917aa56f7ca201.png