"By the end of 1994, there were roughly 10,000 websites on the web. It was still early days and most of the websites were quite basic in structure." https://cybercultural.com/p/1994-web-design/ #internet #theweb #history #technology #cyberculture

It seems “fusion startups” are now a trend. https://techhub.social/@Techmeme/116053224152808284

If you could change one thing about various social media services, what would it be? For me: - Mastodon: more visible search indexing option, ie not hidden in settings, to allow aggregation services to use that data (would still be user-controlled!) - Bluesky: users RTed much more - LinkedIn […]

The Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA) website in 1994, showing what was possible using colorful graphics and minimal HTML. Read more about 1994 web design: https://cybercultural.com/p/1994-web-design/

In the latest post in my history of web design, we enter 1994 — when the Web shifts into a publishing medium. As site authors seek control over formatting and design, the WWW-Talk mailing list hosts an early debate over style sheets and presentation. Also, I look at typical web design elements […]

Suggested update for 2026: Big Tech, Still Addicting Kids tobaccofreekids.org in 2000 https://web.archive.org/web/20000618170315if_/http://tobaccofreekids.org:80/?

RE: https://mas.to/@frontenddogma/116011186079421270 The defining question for indie web publishers in 2026: "If users get their answer from an AI summary, you must provide a compelling reason for them to visit your site. What unique tool, service, or deep expertise do you offer that an AI […]

The #SocialWeb track at #FOSDEM kicked off with a talk by @pfefferle#socialweb#fosdemhat covered WordPress and a "single click" philosophy to set up an ActivityPub instance. Matthias also talked about how blogs and similar sites can broaden the reach of the open social web - this was one of the themes of the […]

Open source sustainability thoughts from “Mr 11ty” @zachleat. Love that he’s found a symbiotic commercial relationship with @FontAwesome. Looking forward to what’s next for @11ty. https://overcast.fm/+AA-SZeh8B8A

I’ve almost finished the migration from Evernote, and I have to say I’m very impressed with Joplin so far. I got a couple of recommendations for Obsidian, which by all accounts is also an excellent open source option. But Joplin better suits my needs and is a close match structurally with […]

While I am on "gardening leave", I am finally taking the opportunity to try and get off Evernote. I've been an Evernote user since 2009, and I use it every day for work and life, so this is a big move. I really want to stick with the folders and stacks layout that Evernote has (hey, I like […]

Some nice themes running through the #socialweb Devroom at #fosdem: storytelling from different national and international contexts (Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Europe); new apps and ideas (badgefed, splinter, FASPs, Spritely); building infrastructure and foundational tech (Bonfire, Fedify […]

Some interesting fediverse-related talks at this year's #fosdem open-source conference. Live stream: https://live.fosdem.org/watch/h2215 Schedule: https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/track/social-web/ #fediverse #opensource #fosdem26

Le WebLouvre, a 1994 virtual art gallery (via https://www.ford-mason.co.uk/resources/stw/node52.html)

This is the first web design of Global Network Navigator, O'Reilly's 1993 "online magazine". It was designed by Jennifer Niederst Robbins, arguably the world's first web designer: https://cybercultural.com/p/1993-global-network-navigator/

For @drupal's 25th anniversary, I spoke with founder @dries. Of interest to Mastodon readers will be Dries' advice for building a long-term open source community: “Don’t expect overnight success. I think anything successful in life usually takes 10 years.” […]

Continuing Cybercultural's history of web design, we're still in 1993 but now we come to perhaps the world's first web designer: Jennifer Niederst Robbins. She designed O'Reilly's Global Network Navigator (GNN), which aimed to be an "online magazine". Not easy when you can't even control the […]

This book spoke to me today at my local indie bookstore. No idea why… #aiculturalstagnation

Prediction: Pinterest, as people have known it, will be dead within five years. I honestly don't think the leadership there has any idea what their userbase actually wants. The End of UX continues… (I wonder if it's time for a #fediverse version of Pinterest. Scratch that, it is definitely […]

RE: https://techhub.social/@Techmeme/115967777421589664 I hate to break it to Meta, but this feature is actually called "Signal".

Not that my indie website gets noticed by Google Discover anyway, but this is still bad news for web publishers: "In the US, Brazil, and Mexico, 51% of the Discover] feed is now AI Summaries, structurally reducing opportunities for publisher clicks." […]

In 1993, web design didn't really exist — you couldn't even change the background color of your web page from grey. But Mosaic launched the first era of visual web design with the IMG tag, and soon after an MTV VJ improbably created one of the first commercial websites […]

Visiting Bristol on a day off is like catching up with your heavily tattooed friend.

RE: https://front-end.social/@zeldman/115939049710640327 Web design is back, baby! Looks fab, as you would expect.

The news of @cloudflare acquiring the company behind @astro is just the latest in a string of similar frontend framework deals. Some of these arrangements go well, some...not so much (RIP Gatsby). https://thenewstack.io/why-platform-companies-keep-buying-frontend-framework-teams/ p.s. @zachleat […]

My employer, The New Stack, has just moved from Title Case to Sentence Case in its headlines (i.e. lower-case instead of capitalizing). I hadn't really noticed before, but most of the tech news sites in our orbit do the same — The Verge, TechCrunch, et al. It […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

There's an ancient blogger rule: no matter how many times you re-read a post before publishing, there is *always* one tiny little typo that you only notice once the post is live. And unfortunately for me, that always happens after I've sent the email version. (another reason to prefer RSS: the […]

The first 1993 post is now on Cybercultural and it tells the story of how the MTV website was born. Unfortunately screenshots are rare for any 1993 website, but this image from April 1994 gives you an idea of what it looked like. https://cybercultural.com/p/1993-mtv-internet/

In 1993, web design didn't really exist — you couldn't even change the background color of your web page from grey. But Mosaic launched the first era of visual web design with the IMG tag, and soon after an MTV VJ improbably created one of the first commercial websites […]

Hey folks, when you come across a cool blog post, please - link it in your blog if you have one - Post a link here I've found the best blogs from links here and also when an article referenced other blogs. Keep in mind, the inter-NET needs links. Otherwise it's no net. #blogging

More and more people are seeking alternatives to Big Tech, given their role in the current state of the world. Many are finding us at @Vivaldi a viable option and I welcome you to try us out. If you already have, please share with your friends. They will, hopefully, join us and thank you. You […]

“Credible, incremental steps that remove power from the gatekeepers are now demanded, and as I have previewed throughout this piece, the open web is that next step.” https://toot.cafe/@slightlyoff/115928854946199473

1/2 In the glory years of the blogosphere, much was made of bloggers needing to be opinionated and to write in a less formal voice than traditional media. If I look back to my 2003-05 posts, there’s a looseness to them — I think it was mostly endearing, but sometimes embarrassing (eg recalling […]

Had a day off today and went to Hay-on-Wye (the UK’s book town) with my daughter. I managed to find a 2006 web design book, packed with screenshots. Anyone else a fan of the “Web Design Index by Content” books? #webdesignhistory

It is the year of the personal website! A corporate-free website starter project — using Eleventy — seems like a solid way to get you started as we see it. https://getzeropoint.com/

ActivityPub standardization is back! The #W3C just announced a new Working Group to evolve #ActivityPub and #ActivityStream and related standards! This is extremely good news. It's not like all the world's federated social media protocol problems were already solved! lists.w3.org/Archive...

We're building #bettersocial for #cymru #Wales Be there for the launch of the new Tŵt app in Cardiff on Feb 28! https://croeso.toot.wales/en/twt-app-launch-event/

Everyone here loves a CSS-in-JS system, right? I took a look at Meta's StyleX and how it compares to the more commonly used Tailwind. While "just use CSS dammit" is the normal response to such tools, it does seem like StyleX has a very specific (and rare) use case: highly scaled apps […]

RE: https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/115899500197045760 Both Wikipedia and Drupal began on 15 January 2001. What an amazing day for the open web.

Congrats @dries and the #drupal community for 25 years on the open web! Love this lesson from Dries' blog post: "You cannot force a community to exist, but you can create the conditions for one to grow." (the opposite is also true: if the conditions suck, people will leave — X, Threads, etc.) p […]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@blu256/115887329279999236 If you're also a journalist on Mastodon, please help @blu256 out and fill in this questionaire. I just did it and only took 5 or so minutes. I'm looking forward to seeing the results. #journalism

If you've been wondering what those #11ty starters look like on the 11ty Bundle site, wonder no more. https://11tybundle.dev/starters/

Thanks @tchambers for including @classicweb. What a great list of follows and love this idea for other instances. https://indieweb.social/@indiewebadmin/115894148692287689

I’d like to announce that I’ve hired a Chief of Staff at Cybercultural: please welcome Richard MacManus (aka ricmac) to the team.

Today I'm launching season 5 of Cybercultural: the history of web design from 1993 till 2012. It will be a celebration of the peak years of personal websites and blogs! I invite you to subscribe now for weekly updates via email or RSS […] [Original post on indieweb.social]

Today I'm launching season 5 of Cybercultural: the history of web design from 1993 till 2012. It will be a celebration of the peak years of personal websites and blogs! My intro post explains the structure and a few of the main themes I'll be exploring during this season (e.g. personal web […]

More uses for websites in 2026: "Notably, the company today is not going to be a large team of 180 employees as before, or one that works with distributors. Instead, there are only five people, and it sells directly to consumers on its website." […]

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@TheNewStack/115882840962073305 Mo colleague Loraine, one of the best in the business of frontend news and analysis. @Lowrain

This January marks 20 years (!) since I started collecting examples of media for my Museum of Obsolete Media project back in 2006. I thought I'd end up collecting around 50 items but I'm now up to 875 different formats catalogued on the Museum website, with over 1,200 items in the collection […]