The Weblog Handbook
We’re currently seeing a faint rekindling of a community of weblogs with the IndieWeb movement and a resurgence of RSS and other open interchange formats. Rebecca Blood was there when weblogging started in the late nineties, browsing the Web and uncovering new content before Google and manually updating the HTML of her site. Since then, a lot has changed. The Weblog Handbook is a window into those early days of the Web and how independent writing and publishing created a vibrant community.
I first came in touch with blogs during my first year at University. At the time, weblogs were one of the few reliable sources to learn how to build modern websites. But I missed much of the early days. So, naturally, the Afterword, bringing to life a timeline of those days, is the most intriguing part of The Weblog Handbook. Blogs were hand-crafted HTML pages; the community was small, formed and held together by linking and responding to each other’s posts. You’d discover new blogs from your visitor logs when they are linked to your site. A lot changed when advancements in user interface allowing bloggers to publish posts more easily. The community grew as more people joined the scene, affecting the very form of blogging and creating new styles of weblogs. All this paved the way for social media allowing anyone to share their thoughts quickly and instantly. I remember the time; everyone was incredibly optimistic about the possibilities of the Web as a platform for communication and exchange, and few foresaw the mess we’re finding ourselves in today.
Most of the other content still holds up as well and is relevant today. How you build an audience has changed; is anyone still hanging out on listservs? Do blogger meet-ups still happen? But the advice on why you should blog, finding your voice, etiquette and ethics, and common pitfalls of opening up online and how to avoid them – these chapters are still relevant.