When Web 2.0 and the explosion of the social web happened back in 2006, I was all in on it. I signed up for everything I could try, out of an excited curiosity and a hopeful expectation that the social web had the power to bring people together in ways that were previously impossible. I reasoned that the more we could connect, and the more we could build community with others regardless of where they were in the world, the better our world would be.
And for many years, I passionately believed that was the case. Like so many others, my world expanded and I got to know many more people. Cynics would say people you meet online are not really “friends”, but that was not my experience. I have many real friends as a result of online connections. I’ve gotten to know many people I first came into contact with thanks to the social web, and many of those in person. I’ve shared meals and drinks and travel and adventures with people that I met as a result of online connections. I’ve invited people I’ve met online to meet up while travelling, to come over for dinner, or even to stay in my house, and I’ve received the same kind of hospitality from others. The social web was a real thing.
A lot has changed over the past 2 decades. The social web was gradually commandeered by big businesses who saw it as a way to sell advertising and make money, or build tribalism to their points of view. Things changed. It became less about the social connections and more about a bunch of people all shouting into the void trying to get attention. Sadly, what I thought had such promise, devolved into far less than I thought it could be.
One of the reasons that I originally set up this blog was to create ownership and permanence. Ownership because I’ve always felt like I want to have some say over where my content goes. I want my own terms of service. I want my own rules about what I can and can’t talk about. I want to own my stuff. And permanence because I don’t want my stuff to just disappear one day because some company decides they need to pivot to some new thing, or stop entirely. I’ve put content in other places over the years of course, and many of those places are no longer around. But this blog is still here, and will be until I decide I no longer need it. I wrote my first post back in August 2006, and although I’ve gone through periods where I’ve written a lot and other times where I’ve hardly written at all, it’s still here. Permanence matters to me.
This will be the 556th post on this blog, but the thing that I am most proud of is that there have been 2,518 comments posted here over the years. At peak “blogosphere”, where this kind of blogging was still a really big thing, the level of social interaction that happened here on this blog used to amaze and humble me. I’ve written many things here over the years that I’m still really proud of, not because of what I wrote, but because of the incredible conversations that were generated, and the community that evolved.
People are still social on other platforms but I’m less and less enthusiastic about being on those other platforms these days. I’ve completely quit Facebook and Twitter, have suspended Instagram, and refuse to do TikTok and Snapchat. My curiosity to explore new platforms has sadly been tempered by the experience of seeing just how divided, tribal, political and inane most of these platforms have become, and how socially polarising they can therefore be. I’ve also been very put off as I’ve learned more about many of the companies behind them and their mission to keep us scrolling at all costs. We are being manipulated in ways that I’m not longer comfortable with.
I still have LinkedIn and Bluesky, because without some kind of social presence you become a bit like a falling tree in a forest that nobody hears. But I’ve come to really appreciate just how important this blog has been to me over the years, and I wanted to post this thought here for my own benefit. Sure, people don’t leave comments on blogs like they used to, mostly because they are too busy putting comments and posts on social media. It’s a lot easier to click a Like button on a social post than to write a thoughtful comment to a piece of long form writing. I get it, I just think it’s unfortunate that as a society we have become ok with that.
