Kottke.org Turns 25

It was in late 2001 or 2002 that I first came across Kottke.org. I had just started university, and it was the first time in my life that I had a reliable internet connection via my uni’s computer science lab. It was fast, and my sister wouldn’t come in asking whether she could use the computer. And so I would sit there late afternoons and read blogs.

It’s hard to overstate the influence Jason Kottke had on the form. He introduced permalinks, the idea that each post should have a separate, linkable page with a URL that will always stay the same. Kottke did tumble logging before Tumblr was a thing, creating small posts often without titles, links with short commentary—a form that I love and prefer myself.

His web design was often ahead of its time. If you look back at Kottke.org from 2002 and compare that to the design of other influential sites from the same era—Kottke’s work stands out. It’s clean, puts the site’s content first and would still work today. It defined what a blog should look like.

I can’t claim to have read Kottke.org consistently over the last 20+ years. But the site is one of the few from the early-internet era that is still going and never slipped off my radar. It consistently provides exciting content, often surprising, challenging or just entertaining. I hope Jason continues to write for at least another ten or fifteen years.

Concrats on 25 years.