How Blogger Begat the Push-Button Publishing Revolution April 16, 2013 12:23 PM Subscribe
This Neat Flowchart from over at Wired didn't seem like enough for a FPP but it's really interesting to see what all the Pyra Labs people have done since 1998, including starting things like Metafilter. "At the close of 1998, there were 23 known weblogs on the Internet. A year later there were tens of thousands. What changed? Pyra Labs launched Blogger, the online tool that gave push-button publishing to the people. It was a revolutionary web product made by a revolutionary web of people who went on to build much of the modern net. Here’s how Pyra propagated."
Ev and Caterina dated? I'd love to see a similar chart for the Movable Type/6A folks. No love for Jack Saturn!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:37 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:37 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
Heh, yeah where's Jack? I bought a digital camera off him right around the time I followed links from saturn.org over to here.
Love that this chart documents the personal relationships alongside all the business-building.
posted by carsonb at 12:47 PM on April 16, 2013
Love that this chart documents the personal relationships alongside all the business-building.
posted by carsonb at 12:47 PM on April 16, 2013
Fun fact from those heady days: pb invented the permalink
posted by Rhaomi at 12:51 PM on April 16, 2013 [22 favorites]
posted by Rhaomi at 12:51 PM on April 16, 2013 [22 favorites]
The line leading from pb back to Pyra Labs makes it look like Paul worked for Matt Hamer, or vice-versa.
posted by carsonb at 12:56 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by carsonb at 12:56 PM on April 16, 2013
Wow, I feel like I'm a part of internet history when really I'm not because I've done nothing more that sit around and read a website for the past eight years when I could've been doing more with my life dear god am I that big of a loser.
posted by slogger at 12:58 PM on April 16, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by slogger at 12:58 PM on April 16, 2013 [5 favorites]
My Q&A probably makes more sense when you realize I was answering questions about Ask MeFi specifically for a good while, and they edited the questions to make it sound like I was talking about the blue or MeFi in particular. That whole bit about the "right size" of a community was in reference to questions and answers, not really MeFi itself.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:42 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:42 PM on April 16, 2013
where's Jack?
I still see him in random spots in Portland, Oregon. He's still into the music, comics, and zine scenes up here. The most hilarious time I ran into him was when I was buying this crazy expensive bed for my daughter's room (her first "big girl" bed that will last until high school) from a hoity-toity baby shop and the owner yelled to the back of the store's warehouse to get someone to help me move the boxes into my car. A door opens and it's jack, ready to help.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:45 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
I still see him in random spots in Portland, Oregon. He's still into the music, comics, and zine scenes up here. The most hilarious time I ran into him was when I was buying this crazy expensive bed for my daughter's room (her first "big girl" bed that will last until high school) from a hoity-toity baby shop and the owner yelled to the back of the store's warehouse to get someone to help me move the boxes into my car. A door opens and it's jack, ready to help.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:45 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
I've repeatedly been told there is no cabal, but this flowchart seems to say otherwise.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:53 PM on April 16, 2013 [8 favorites]
posted by entropicamericana at 1:53 PM on April 16, 2013 [8 favorites]
Talking about Jack Saturn and permalinks, its funny to see this comment from Ev archived for posterity.
posted by vacapinta at 2:03 PM on April 16, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by vacapinta at 2:03 PM on April 16, 2013 [3 favorites]
I was talking with a non-technical friend the other day about his startup idea, and likened his concept to Fuelly (social network spreadsheets?). He asks me how Fuelly started and how it was funded, so I tried to explain about mathowie and pb and MeFi and Pyra and the invention/popularization of blogging and all, but I think his eyes glazed over about the time I got to explaining that a website can have actual employees who aren't programmers or founders.
Maybe I should just send him this chart.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 3:04 PM on April 16, 2013
Maybe I should just send him this chart.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 3:04 PM on April 16, 2013
So what were the 23 big blogs of 1998? I was too busy practicing for my driver's license to read blogs.
posted by Science! at 3:16 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by Science! at 3:16 PM on April 16, 2013
I think the "ye olde skool" section of JJG's weblog list is probably the definitive list of "blogs that were around in '98". Note that we of that community freely admitted that the escribitionists/journalers had been around for a good long time, and that things that looked a lot like what Jorn called "weblogs" had also popped up occasionally, so the '98 crowd was kind of a confluence of social clique (whatever you think of him, gotta acknowledge Dave Winer in bringing that community together online), people building software to manage the regular updates, and some notion of links and commentary together.
And others have written way more on trying to define it than I can whip up off the cuff.
I was kinda disappointed that my weblogging software didn't show up, but given that it was only used by my blog and, for a short time, apparently some portions of Hotwired.com (may have even been internal, I exchanged a few emails with Jeff Veen at the time about how he was using it), well... yeah.
Kinda like the web browser I wrote in '93: Right concept, wrong platform, completely missed the point. Sigh.
posted by straw at 3:33 PM on April 16, 2013
And others have written way more on trying to define it than I can whip up off the cuff.
I was kinda disappointed that my weblogging software didn't show up, but given that it was only used by my blog and, for a short time, apparently some portions of Hotwired.com (may have even been internal, I exchanged a few emails with Jeff Veen at the time about how he was using it), well... yeah.
Kinda like the web browser I wrote in '93: Right concept, wrong platform, completely missed the point. Sigh.
posted by straw at 3:33 PM on April 16, 2013
(Oh, and for all of my emphasis on software up there, I think Cam and Brad both updated their sites by hand for the longest time...)
posted by straw at 3:34 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by straw at 3:34 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Nice chart!
Talking about Jack Saturn and permalinks, its funny to see this comment from Ev archived for posterity.
Wowsers, I remember that thread.
I probably shouldn't admit this in public, but back then when I was lurking MetaFilter it seemed totally amazing that I could read these famous web people talking in public about their spats and squabbles. It was sort of a bit like when an actual pop star wrote an angry letter to Smash Hits ;-)
Fun fact from those heady days: pb invented the permalink
I definitely shouldn't admit this in public, but... about a month ago I was in my parents' kitchen and (apparently) beaming while looking at my computer, so my Mom asked what I was so happy about. My reply: 'The bloke who invented the fucking permanent link just linked to my weblog from his weblog!'
I then had to try to explain the concept of a permanent link to a woman who has never touched a computer, which took the edge off a bit, but for a minute I was transported back to the heady days of 'Crikey Moses, there are twenty-seven people looking at my web log right now according to Site Meter! Thank goodness for Blogger, I never would've posted that cool link if I still had to manually edit the HTML of my personal web page and upload it using Transmit!'.
Thanks for the link, pb!
I'd love to see a similar chart for the Movable Type/6A folks
Same here. Maybe I just stopped subscribing to the right RSS feeds, but it seems like those folk all sort of disappeared in a puff of smoke after Vox went tits up and they sold 6A to a company called Egg? Or something like that?
posted by jack_mo at 3:52 PM on April 16, 2013 [4 favorites]
Talking about Jack Saturn and permalinks, its funny to see this comment from Ev archived for posterity.
Wowsers, I remember that thread.
I probably shouldn't admit this in public, but back then when I was lurking MetaFilter it seemed totally amazing that I could read these famous web people talking in public about their spats and squabbles. It was sort of a bit like when an actual pop star wrote an angry letter to Smash Hits ;-)
Fun fact from those heady days: pb invented the permalink
I definitely shouldn't admit this in public, but... about a month ago I was in my parents' kitchen and (apparently) beaming while looking at my computer, so my Mom asked what I was so happy about. My reply: 'The bloke who invented the fucking permanent link just linked to my weblog from his weblog!'
I then had to try to explain the concept of a permanent link to a woman who has never touched a computer, which took the edge off a bit, but for a minute I was transported back to the heady days of 'Crikey Moses, there are twenty-seven people looking at my web log right now according to Site Meter! Thank goodness for Blogger, I never would've posted that cool link if I still had to manually edit the HTML of my personal web page and upload it using Transmit!'.
Thanks for the link, pb!
I'd love to see a similar chart for the Movable Type/6A folks
Same here. Maybe I just stopped subscribing to the right RSS feeds, but it seems like those folk all sort of disappeared in a puff of smoke after Vox went tits up and they sold 6A to a company called Egg? Or something like that?
posted by jack_mo at 3:52 PM on April 16, 2013 [4 favorites]
One thing that made me uncomfortable with the flowchart was how EVERY woman on it had either a "dated" or "married" line connecting her to a man on the chart.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:59 PM on April 16, 2013 [7 favorites]
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:59 PM on April 16, 2013 [7 favorites]
Did I know that pb was part of the Pyra gang? If I did, I must've forgotten. Stupid brain.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:34 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:34 PM on April 16, 2013
Maybe I just stopped subscribing to the right RSS feeds, but it seems like those folk all sort of disappeared in a puff of smoke after Vox went tits up and they sold 6A to a company called Egg?
6A merged with VideoEgg and became SAY Media. The old crew is still around, but FB and G+ and Twitter have pretty much replaced blogs SFAICT. (Although I hear one of them still has a real honest-to-God blog on a lovely professional white background.)
posted by asterix at 6:02 PM on April 16, 2013
6A merged with VideoEgg and became SAY Media. The old crew is still around, but FB and G+ and Twitter have pretty much replaced blogs SFAICT. (Although I hear one of them still has a real honest-to-God blog on a lovely professional white background.)
posted by asterix at 6:02 PM on April 16, 2013
This is extraordinarily cool. We walk among giants.
posted by arcticseal at 6:27 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by arcticseal at 6:27 PM on April 16, 2013
How on earth were there only 23 "known weblogs" on the internet? I'm pretty sure mine, hosted on a now-defunct ISP out of northeast Texas, didn't qualify as "known," but it existed--in the company of hundreds of other smart awkward young women writing about their lives online, for almost-entirely-online audiences of friends we talked to regularly on ICQ. I really miss the sense of solidarity among these extended communities, amid the so-blurry-they-probably-don't-exist-anymore public/private/personal/professional boundaries online now.
posted by tapir-whorf at 6:38 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by tapir-whorf at 6:38 PM on April 16, 2013
I think the "ye olde skool" section of JJG's weblog list is probably the definitive list of "blogs that were around in '98".
Fun fact: I am on that list! There is probably a MeFi account for everyone on that list, actually. 23 seems like a weird understatement.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:10 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Fun fact: I am on that list! There is probably a MeFi account for everyone on that list, actually. 23 seems like a weird understatement.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:10 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
"How on earth were there only 23 "known weblogs" on the internet?"
Remember that at the time there were plenty of personal journals on the net (I was a dedicated reader of The Semi-Existence of Bryon which sources tell me was announced in April of '95 since pretty close to its inception), and there were plenty of people writing stories (Hello alt.sex.stories, for one!), but that notion of a personal site consisting of links with short commentary was still pretty new for the web, even in February '98 (when I started).
"There is probably a MeFi account for everyone on that list, actually."
I suspect that I was the last hold-out ("No! We should all have our own sites and cross-link for commentary! No multi-contributor! Nevaaaarrrr!") and that, indeed, everyone on that list was around here somewhere at one point or another.
"My reply: 'The bloke who invented the fucking permanent link just linked to my weblog from his weblog!'"
My archives suggest that I was at least putting
Damn it, now I'm gonna start missing Brad again. Sniff.
posted by straw at 7:53 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
Remember that at the time there were plenty of personal journals on the net (I was a dedicated reader of The Semi-Existence of Bryon which sources tell me was announced in April of '95 since pretty close to its inception), and there were plenty of people writing stories (Hello alt.sex.stories, for one!), but that notion of a personal site consisting of links with short commentary was still pretty new for the web, even in February '98 (when I started).
"There is probably a MeFi account for everyone on that list, actually."
I suspect that I was the last hold-out ("No! We should all have our own sites and cross-link for commentary! No multi-contributor! Nevaaaarrrr!") and that, indeed, everyone on that list was around here somewhere at one point or another.
"My reply: 'The bloke who invented the fucking permanent link just linked to my weblog from his weblog!'"
My archives suggest that I was at least putting
name="..." targets in as of October '99, but didn't go to the individual entry form 'til I wrote the system with comments. And on 'net famous', I remember the first time I got an email from Danny O'Brien of NTK fame: It was like I'd just strummed the power chord in front of a packed stadium audience... (Wonder if I still have that email around somewhere...)Damn it, now I'm gonna start missing Brad again. Sniff.
posted by straw at 7:53 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
I think the "ye olde skool" section of JJG's weblog list is probably the definitive list of "blogs that were around in '98".
It's missing Suck.com. So, not quite definitive.
posted by mediareport at 8:03 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
It's missing Suck.com. So, not quite definitive.
posted by mediareport at 8:03 PM on April 16, 2013 [1 favorite]
In part, that’s due to your choice to cap the number of users and charge a small fee for membership.
Huh? Where did Wired get that "cap the number of users" thing? Bizarre that in 2013 Wired still can't get the basics of Metafilter right.
posted by mediareport at 8:17 PM on April 16, 2013
Huh? Where did Wired get that "cap the number of users" thing? Bizarre that in 2013 Wired still can't get the basics of Metafilter right.
posted by mediareport at 8:17 PM on April 16, 2013
Arrgghhh, did anyone else just waste a few minutes trying to process why this graph could possibly be saying "pb inhibits Adobe Creative Cloud's inhibition of Metafilter"?
(for the confused)
posted by en forme de poire at 8:59 PM on April 16, 2013
(for the confused)
posted by en forme de poire at 8:59 PM on April 16, 2013
It is bugging me that there is no line between pb and fuelly! What's up with that?
posted by ericost at 9:07 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by ericost at 9:07 PM on April 16, 2013
I saw mathowie bugging mat about it on Twitter, just a dopey oversight I think.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:09 PM on April 16, 2013
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:09 PM on April 16, 2013
Huh? Where did Wired get that "cap the number of users" thing?
From mathowie capping the number of users! I can't remember the dates - 2001ish, I think? - but it wasn't possible to open a new account for a long time, then for a while sign-ups were only available for short periods.
Going by your user number, you joined before any of this happened - anyone below 14k got in before sign-ups were closed, IIRC.
posted by jack_mo at 9:28 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
From mathowie capping the number of users! I can't remember the dates - 2001ish, I think? - but it wasn't possible to open a new account for a long time, then for a while sign-ups were only available for short periods.
Going by your user number, you joined before any of this happened - anyone below 14k got in before sign-ups were closed, IIRC.
posted by jack_mo at 9:28 PM on April 16, 2013 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of the cluster of people associated with The Whole Earth review. Also, the personal relationship links are fascinating.
posted by mecran01 at 6:19 AM on April 17, 2013
posted by mecran01 at 6:19 AM on April 17, 2013
I remember the temporary cap, jack_mo. The way it reads at Wired, though, implies there's currently a cap on users. Maybe that's just me.
posted by mediareport at 6:35 AM on April 17, 2013
posted by mediareport at 6:35 AM on April 17, 2013
It was a revolutionary web product made by a revolutionary web of people
So y'all are like those people with double-digit party membership cards in the Soviet Union huh?
posted by philipy at 7:39 AM on April 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
So y'all are like those people with double-digit party membership cards in the Soviet Union huh?
posted by philipy at 7:39 AM on April 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
It's missing Suck.com. So, not quite definitive.
Dude. As much as it's clear Suck.com is an example of the form in a journalistic context, it wasn't a personal blog. Not that I'm trying to re-grout the castle walls or anything -- as noted we all acknowledge we weren't doing anything 100% new -- but the whole direction of personal sites changed when they became chronological, as some essay somewhere has definitively pointed out.
Suck is a forbear of Gawker, and could be said to have more in common with things like Slate, and was probably the foremost adherent of the idea that you could link to stuff inline, as well as some overlap with a few things that Jorn was doing, but the "Old School" page Jesse put together was intended to point out a nascent form and not be a complete listing of everything that could be lumped under the word "blog" by the time your mom had heard of it.
posted by dhartung at 3:20 PM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Dude. As much as it's clear Suck.com is an example of the form in a journalistic context, it wasn't a personal blog. Not that I'm trying to re-grout the castle walls or anything -- as noted we all acknowledge we weren't doing anything 100% new -- but the whole direction of personal sites changed when they became chronological, as some essay somewhere has definitively pointed out.
Suck is a forbear of Gawker, and could be said to have more in common with things like Slate, and was probably the foremost adherent of the idea that you could link to stuff inline, as well as some overlap with a few things that Jorn was doing, but the "Old School" page Jesse put together was intended to point out a nascent form and not be a complete listing of everything that could be lumped under the word "blog" by the time your mom had heard of it.
posted by dhartung at 3:20 PM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Eh, Suck was a group blog, one of the best and earliest, and a clear and obvious forerunner of the many group blogs we're loaded with today. There's no lumping necessary.
Suck.com was a blog.
posted by mediareport at 4:16 PM on April 17, 2013
Suck.com was a blog.
posted by mediareport at 4:16 PM on April 17, 2013
As dhartung points out, none of us thought of suck.com as a blog, but more to the point, by the time Peter Merholz got around to shortening "weblog" to "blog", if you'd suggested to suck.com that they were a blog the proprietors of that daily commentary site would have attempted to say something witty, ended up saying something sarcastic, and gone off and sulked in a corner.
posted by straw at 5:09 PM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by straw at 5:09 PM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Also: none of us hung out with Carl.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:24 PM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:24 PM on April 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
It is bugging me that there is no line between pb and fuelly! What's up with that?
posted by ericost
It also bugs me that Flickr is only linked to Caterina and Heather but I guess thats because neither you nor Stewart nor Cal dated or married anyone from Pyra.
posted by vacapinta at 5:46 AM on April 18, 2013
posted by ericost
It also bugs me that Flickr is only linked to Caterina and Heather but I guess thats because neither you nor Stewart nor Cal dated or married anyone from Pyra.
posted by vacapinta at 5:46 AM on April 18, 2013
I had a weblog in '97, it was small beans enough to escape any notice. It was more of an online journal; mostly me complaining about dumb stuff and pointing out neat stuff on the internet. Lot of post-teenaged angst with some tips about how to be a gopher power-user. I was honest enough about IRL stuff to lose 90% on my friends and to cement the remaining 10% for life.
I was inspired by/ emulating dannyman .
The last existing archives of my 'blog were copied onto long-gone floppies sometime in the spring of '99, slavaged from a ornery powermac 7100 to a crummy Toshiba laptop. Unless it's still out there...
Fun fact, my blog was served off my PowerMac from a static IP addrrss from Virginia Tech until the nerdy Matts down the hall offered me some 24/7 uptime hosting on their dual pentium pro server, home of their little project that was paying them to go to school hosting a website for a guy with a band named Trent Reznor.
posted by peeedro at 9:10 PM on April 19, 2013
I was inspired by/ emulating dannyman .
The last existing archives of my 'blog were copied onto long-gone floppies sometime in the spring of '99, slavaged from a ornery powermac 7100 to a crummy Toshiba laptop. Unless it's still out there...
Fun fact, my blog was served off my PowerMac from a static IP addrrss from Virginia Tech until the nerdy Matts down the hall offered me some 24/7 uptime hosting on their dual pentium pro server, home of their little project that was paying them to go to school hosting a website for a guy with a band named Trent Reznor.
posted by peeedro at 9:10 PM on April 19, 2013
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posted by cortex (staff) at 12:34 PM on April 16, 2013 [5 favorites]