This platform feels like a blog, its comment section, and an RSS reader wrapped up into a semi-social network. It’s a refreshing approach. Anyone else remember when networking between like minded web pages was done with tiny gif graphics?
Different communities would share links to each others pages using these tags. I have fond memories of scrolling through pages full of them, checking out different sites and blogs. They were all driven by clever design and creativity as a means to drive traffic and we all had a sense of community through sharing.
There was a standard size for the gifs so they always lined up in a tidy way on everyones link pages. They are comically small now on modern pixel dense displays. I managed to find mine nearly lost among the ether. Back in the day hosting was so limited that in order to share you also had to supply a link to the image and use your own bandwidth by hosting the gif yourself, its why so many ended up breaking over time as webpages closed up.
I also found this snapshot of one of my earliest web page designs, back when it was just hard coded with HTML Ive been sharing photos and designs as wallpaper online since forever; this version of my old site was from 2002! I still keep the last version of twistedsun.net up online for prosperity. Good times.
