Personal update: after nearly 6 years at The New Stack, my role has come to an end as part of a broader round of redundancies. I’m now exploring ideas at the intersection of AI and web systems, particularly how AI is reshaping the architecture and future of the open web. I welcome conversations.

Although the Web is technically limited in 1994, it is a fast-growing network and so curation quickly becomes a design problem. Enter Glenn Davis and his website, Cool Site of the Day. cybercultural.com/p/1994-cool-... #WebDesignHistory

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/

This whole series is unendingly delightful. Especially if the 90s is the internet you remember most fondly.

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 and presentation. cybercultural.com/p/1994-web-d... #WebDesign

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

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 @drupalassociation.bsky.social's 25th anniversary, I spoke with founder Dries Buytaert. His advice for building a long-term open source community: “Don’t expect overnight success. I think anything successful in life usually takes 10 years.” thenewstack.io/drupal-turns... #OpenSource

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). cybercultural.com/p/1993-globa... cc @jenville.bsky.social @rachelandrew.bsky.social

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). thenewstack.io/why-platform...

🧵 Your micro-memoir doesn't need to be about life-changing moments. It can be deeply nerdy about whatever you actually care about. Here's what a tech history newsletter taught me about documenting the small, obsessive details that only you would think to preserve:

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 and soon after an MTV VJ (@curry.com) improbably created one of the first commercial websites. cybercultural.com/p/1993-mtv-i...

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

Everyone here loves a CSS-in-JS system, right? I took a look at Meta's StyleX & how it compares to the more commonly used Tailwind. While "just use CSS dammit" is the normal response to such tools, StyleX has a very specific (& rare) use case: highly scaled apps. thenewstack.io/stylex-vs-ta... #CSS

Oh my goodness! Look at that, 20 years. One of my favourite designs, gosh

big q for Leaflet + standard.site: how can we rethink 'subscribing' for the social web? different from subbing via RSS feed or email newsletter! & this succeeds to the extent it's a great social experience, where ppl can interact w/ an ecosystem of many readers & writers, w/ lots of entry points…

A history of web design, from the grey web pages of 1993 to the colorful, mobile-centric web designs of 2012. A celebration of the peak years of personal websites and blogs. By Richard MacManus. cybercultural.com/p/history-of...

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. cybercultural.com/p/history-of... #WebDesignHistory

One of my current areas of interest is Web AI, where apps use AI models on-device via the browser. But this is also possible using native mobile apps, as a UK company called DataSapien is doing with its new SDK. I spoke to its founder and CEO StJohn “Singe” Deakins. thenewstack.io/datasapiens-...

Group weblogs...you don't see too many of them these days. Who has time, I guess, with all those social media accounts to update. radiofreeblogistan.com in 2004 https://web.archive.org/web/20040830025833if_/http://www.radiofreeblogistan.com:80

Open question: how do tech folks keep track of interesting events and conferences you might want to attend. Back in Web 2.0, Upcoming was great for this. I know @andybaio resurrected it several years ago, but not sure if it’s currently maintained (it seems to only have a Twitter login option […]

To commemorate the 79th anniversary of David Bowie's birth & nearly the 10th anniversary of his passing, I've written a mini-history of Bowie's website from 2004 to 2016 — including why he shunned social media ("Dropped my cell phone down below"). cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-2... #BowieForever 👨‍🎤

DavidBowie.com on January 8, 2016. RIP #bowieforever (click here for a mini-history of Bowie's website from 2004-2016: https://cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-2004-2016/)

To commemorate the 79th anniversary of David Bowie's birth & nearly the 10th anniversary of his passing, I've written a mini-history of Bowie's website from 2004 to 2016 — including why he shunned social media ("Dropped my cell phone down below"). cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-2... #BowieForever 👨‍🎤

The final post of Cybercultural season 4 -> Online music & blogging were two key trends in the first decade of digital culture. In 2003, they combine in the form of MP3 blogs. Together with Pitchfork, they revolutionize music journalism. cybercultural.com/p/mp3-blogs-... #InternetHistory #MP3Blogs

Jamiroquai’s website in 2003, one of many Flash designs that year. Read more about the internet in 2003: https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-2003/

Remember "social software"? We heard this term a lot during 2003. While it would take another year for Silicon Valley to start inflating another bubble — this one would be named "Web 2.0" — there was a renewed sense of optimism in '03. cybercultural.com/p/internet-2... #InternetHistory

My wrapup of AI development in 2025 for @thenewstack.io. thenewstack.io/ai-engineeri...

My latest for @thenewstack.io is a look at two new "agentic user interface" projects, one from Google (A2UI) and one being driven by OpenAI and Anthropic (MCP Apps). thenewstack.io/agent-ui-sta...

good post! touches on a lot of interesting things in internet publishing today: website as "online magazine" vs blog & publishing in *seasons*, experiments with "replanting" older articles, the emergent *open social* movement & challenges of recapturing the energy of the blogosphere…

How my independent website, Cybercultural, has fared during 2025 — a year when AI summaries whittled away search referral traffic and social media continued its war against hyperlinks. Also, I reflect on the state of the open web from a publishing pov. cybercultural.com/p/indie-web-... #IndieWeb

What are your biggest complaints about using the web right now?

My official entrance into the blogosphere in 2003 with a Radio Userland blog called Read/WriteWeb. Read more about blogging in 2003: https://cybercultural.com/p/blogosphere-2003/

In the final part of my 5-part series on the history of blogging and RSS, we come to 2003: when RSS Readers like NetNewsWire and Bloglines burst onto the scene, Google buys Blogger, WordPress debuts, and 16-year old Aaron Swartz live-blogs a Dave Winer keynote. cybercultural.com/p/blogospher...

It's year-end wrapup time and here are my top 5 web development trends of 2025. They show a divide between AI coding tools that favor React and the growing power of native web features. thenewstack.io/web-developm...

MTV2.com circa 2000-2002; an entirely Flash website. Watch a screencast here: https://cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-v3-flash-2003/

This week I look back at the peak of Flash web design in 2003. In particular, the launch of BowieNet version 3 — designed completely in Flash (which made it a huge challenge to get screenshots from Wayback Machine!). h/t @webdesignmuseum.org for feature image & vid. cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-v...

ojr.usc.edu in 2001 https://web.archive.org/web/20011009073135if_/http://ojr.usc.edu:80/content/story.cfm?request=585

“Now every damn milquetoast æsthete cursing himself for still being stuck working at the Barnes & Noble in Evanston, Reston, or Laramie will want to start his own blog.” fawny.org in 2002 https://web.archive.org/web/20020823224052if_/http://www.fawny.org:80/decon-blog.html

When social networks went mainstream in 2003, with Friendster and then its copycat MySpace, they were initially positioned as dating apps (later that year, Mark Zuckerberg would use the "hot or not" format in Facemash...but that's another, creepier, story!). cybercultural.com/p/myspace-20...

Hands up who used one of KaZaA, Morpheus, LimeWire, eMule or BitTorrent in 2002? That year was utter chaos in P2P, but a lot of fun too :) https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-2002/

Let's take a trip back to 2002, when broadband kicked into gear and we got interactive websites like MTV and colorful "tableless CSS" designs like Wired. 2002 was also when "the blogosphere" was defined. Meanwhile, utter chaos ruled in the P2P music sharing scene. cybercultural.com/p/internet-2...

2002 was perhaps the peak of desktop-PC blog design. Many blogs of this time had a narrow main column of text and a sidebar stuffed with blogrolls, RSS buttons, photos, biographical information, and more. https://cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-2002/

I talk to the CEO of MozillaAI about Mozilla's AI strategy and why the web doesn't seem to be that important in its new mission. thenewstack.io/how-mozillas...

In the latest post in my history of blogging and RSS series, I look at the emergence of the blogosphere in 2002 — a thriving ecosystem of colourful personal sites that interconnected to each other via RSS, trackback and blogrolls. cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-...

Google’s recent Web AI Summit revealed more about how the company is positioning Chrome as a foundation for AI apps & agents. Also, we heard that Google is “super committed to continuing to invest in an open, interoperable Web,” says Parisa Tabriz, Google Chrome VP/GM. thenewstack.io/googles-web-...

I seem to recall "pardon my rust" was a fairly common expression in the early 2000s...back when you weren't posting every day, let alone every 2 minutes on social media. moveablebeast.com in 2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20060107154436if_/http://www.moveablebeast.com:80