I actually started with mastodon.technology in early April 2017. But the reason was that mastodon.social wasn’t taking new users at the time. Mastodon.technology was shuttered soon after, but by then I had gone to mastodon.social (when the gates opened again). I was definitely on here by mid-2017, per this June 2017 blog post:

AltPlatform

The hunt for Twitter alternatives: Mastodon

Let’s get this out of the way right at the start: Mastodon is not a Twitter killer. It’s more like Twitter crossed with Reddit, plus it’s ope...

xrvs (@xarvos@outerheaven.club)

i see an argument that mastodon.social is needed for onboardingso, let’s do something very scientific: which fedi instance did you start with?(bo...

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. 2002 also saw the debut of RSS 2.0, Technorati and Google News.

Cybercultural

How the Blogosphere Takes Shape in 2002, Along With RSS 2.0

The blogosphere becomes a trend in 2002 — a growing ecosystem of weblogs interconnecting via feeds, comments and a new feature called trackback. ...

#InternetHistory #Blogging

This week on Cybercultural, more early-2000s Apple 🍎, including why Steve Jobs didn't want online music to go the streaming route (which of course it eventually did).

Cybercultural

2002: The Second iPod and Steve Jobs on Music Streaming

With its revolutionary 'touch wheel' and double the storage, Apple's 2nd gen iPod is the state of the art in digital music in 2002. But the future ...

#InternetHistory

Kazuo Ishiguro, one of my favourite writers, on AI: “I think many of us are concerned about the fact that the copyrights were completely infringed. Our work was being taken, all my books have been taken to train AI, but if the copyrights can be respected then it can be used in a way that, say, a traditional researcher would use somebody else’s book. Just because it’s AI, it shouldn’t be an excuse to just raid people’s intellectual property.”

The Independent

King and author Sir Kazuo Ishiguro ‘discussed threat AI could pose to creatives’

The Japanese-born writer, 70, was made a Companion of Honour for services to literature at an event at Windsor Castle on Tuesday.

Poll: if you had to choose one primary tech ecosystem that you belong to in 2025, which would it be? (Listed alphabetically; and comment if you consider yourself part of an ecosystem not mentioned here)

A bigco techie I was DMing with described the current state of the web as a “tragedy of the commons” (per Wikipedia: “…if many people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource, such as a pasture, they will tend to overuse it and may end up destroying its value altogether”). I think this is actually a better description of now than “enshittification”; because if creative people stop publishing to the web, that depletes the “pasture”. Human creativity & passion is no longer valued.

Continuing my history of blogging and RSS series, I look at 2001: the year of warblogs, Movable Type and Blogdex. I see '01 as a transition year for blogging, in which it shifts from personal journaling to a more journalistic approach (although many personal bloggers resented the influx of warbloggers). There are lots of great 2001 screenshots in this post, so I hope you enjoy it.

Cybercultural

Blogging Gets Serious in 2001 With Warblogs and Movable Type

After September 11, 2001, an influx of warblogs shakes up the blogosphere. It's part of a year-long transition in which blogging shifts from person...

#InternetHistory #Blogging

I know people will be piling on about Grokipedia, but hilariously its definition of Web 2.0 seems to be much better than Wikipedia's. On Grokipedia's page, there's a great description of misinformation on platforms like X and Facebook. Wikipedia does not mention any of that. Refs: 1.

Grokipedia

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 denotes the second generation of the World Wide Web, characterized by dynamic websites that emphasize user-generated content, interactivity...

2.

Web 2.0 - Wikipedia

(p.s. Grokipedia cites my internet history website Cybercultural.com twice, whereas Wikipedia ignores it! C'mon Wikipedia, get with it.)

A new project out of MIT is building open, decentralized infrastructure for AI agents as an alternative to proprietary platforms. As I note in the post, shades of the fediverse here! https://thenewstack.io/how-mits-project-nanda-aims-to-decentralize-ai-agents/

Today, October 21, 2025, there is a rally in San Francisco in support of @npub1umd6...wfr7. Tomorrow, the Internet Archive is having a party to celebrate 1 trillion webpages archived. To show my appreciation for their most famous creation, the Wayback Machine, this week's Cybercultural post takes you back 24 years to its launch. Thank-you @npub1ftlr...3e6s and long live the Internet Archive!

Cybercultural

2001: The Internet Gets a Memory With the Wayback Machine

In October 2001, Brewster Kahle demonstrates a new time machine from the Internet Archive called the Wayback Machine. It will become a vital link b...

#InternetHistory