What was the internet like before blogging? What was it even before the web browser? I remember a time (way back in the 90’s) when the most fun we could have online was with Usenet, email lists, BBS (Bulletin Board Systems), and IRC. Does anyone remember those? If only I could get back the sleepless nights exploring this brand new world.
The big boom for blogging occurred in 1999, when Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan launched Blogger.com. It caught the attention of people wanting to share their thoughts in an easy way. You could set up a blog in a matter of minutes and start creating content. Blogger was purchased by Google in 2003, and remained the preferred blogging platform for some time.
In that same year (2003) Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little came up with WordPress, and again revolutionized the blogging world. Launched as an open source project, WP has grown immensely over the years and is currently the platform of choice for over 20 percent of all websites.
A bit later, in 2006, Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass launched Twitter, a micro blogging platform where you can share your thoughts 140 characters at a time. With this, blogging got a wider definition, going from longer posts organized on a web page, to having a broader distribution. Is Twitter blogging? Not in the classical sense at least. It’s an evolution of blogging, with its own strong and particular characteristics such as real-time connecting and sharing.
You might think that longer form content is doomed with the appearance of Twitter and other short content apps like Vine, Jelly, and Instagram (not blogging in a strict sense, but ways of sharing content). I think longer content still has an important place, where people can elaborate on thoughts and clearly explain concepts and ideas. Medium is a great example of this.
As for me, I’ve been blogging at least since 2002 (probably earlier). That’s 12 years. I’ve had several blogs and sites over the years, ranging from music, books, the arts, and photography. I believe the blog isn’t going anywhere soon, as long as content is still relevant. And good content will always be relevant. Here’s to another 20 years!
Leave a Comment