I keep having a conversation with people around the tech world about how the industry’s current state of change — especially the potential disruption of incumbents — feels like nothing so much as a cyclical repeat of what we saw in 2004. A generation...

Not too long ago, I said "Thanks to the mistrust of big tech, the creation of better tools for developers, and the weird and wonderful creativity of ordinary people, we’re seeing an incredibly unlikely comeback: the web is thriving again."...

Mastodon and the fediverse are clearly taking off, bringing in millions of new users, and also organically inspiring a wave of technical innovation that dwarfs all of the efforts that the bribes and empty promises of the Web3 crypto bubble couldn't...

Thanks to the mistrust of big tech, the creation of better tools for developers, and the weird and wonderful creativity of ordinary people, we’re seeing an incredibly unlikely comeback: the web is thriving again. If you had to pick the unexpected...

Security reports from other sites are welcome. Why aren’t safety reports? One of the most fundamental triumphs of the last few decades of open source culture is the open sharing of bugs and how to fix them. There are mature, effective systems for...

Here’s how you do it. Build a platform which relies on cultural creation as its core value, but which only sees itself as a technology platform. Stick to this insistence on being solely a “neutral” tech company in every aspect of decision-making,...

Amongst the many new publications that's popped up in the current newsletter boom, I've been enjoying Kate Lindsay and Nick Catucci's "Embedded". One of the biggest reasons why is the recurring feature "My Internet", which details...

These days, I'm a hobbyist web developer. That used to be a common thing people did; it was like having a crafting hobby, but with web pages. Over the last decade or two, though, making a website became either something done by professional...

I was delighted to discover Omar Rizwan's TabFS, a brilliant hack that lets you see your browser tabs as folders and files on your computer, because it's incredibly clever on its own, but also opens a view into how a shift in metaphor  can totally...

In the early days of Twitter, there was a pleasingly low-tech tradition called "follow friday" (which people later denoted with the #FF hashtag), wherein people listed other accounts that they suggested you might follow. It did a good job...

People are wrong on the Internet every day; generally I don’t try to fuss about that too much. But when Sam Lessin, a former VP of Product Management at Facebook, publishes a wildly wrong recommendation about online identity in a credible media...

Today, for about half an hour in the afternoon, pretty much every app that you might try on your iPhone would likely have crashed upon opening it. It's probably worth understanding why, but more importantly, worth understanding what that reality...

Every day, millions of people rely on independent websites that are mostly created by regular people, weren't designed as mobile apps, connect deeply to culture, and aren't run by the giant tech companies. These are a vision of not just what the web...

We don’t even notice it anymore — “link in bio”. It’s a pithy phrase, usually found on Instagram, which directs an audience to be aware that a pertinent web link can be found on that user’s profile. Its presence is so subtle, and so pervasive, that...

Even though I watched the medium of podcasting being created since its inception, I'd always resisted a little bit participating myself. I think I just felt more at home in this format, blogging, as that's where I'd found my voice. Well, that might...

At a time when millions are losing trust in the the web’s biggest sites, it’s worth revisiting the idea that the web was supposed to be made out of countless little sites. Here’s a look at the neglected technologies that were supposed to make it...

A dozen years ago, the web started to reshape itself around major companies like Google. We can understand the genesis of today’s algorithmic arms race against the tech titans just by looking at a single character. This is all ancient tech history...

Every single day we’re hearing about the failings of big tech companies and what they’re doing to the web. The ethical failings, the transgressions against privacy, the rampant and shameless exclusion of most people from the opportunities that tech...

There’s been precious little documentation of the real cultural impact that the social web has had, particularly in its earliest years. So it’s exciting when people in academia who are researching those topics share their findings. I was sent a set...

I spend so much time writing, and thinking, about technology and tech companies. And so much of it’s critical. I point the finger at how the apps and sites we build aren’t meaningful, how the systems and institutions that support them aren’t...

In my years working in technology, I have learned a few things. These lessons have become oft-repeated refrains when speaking to people, so I thought I’d collect them so I have a link to send folks when needed. Given enough time, any object which...

I got the chance to revisit some of the themes of the Web We Lost in the broader context of how we confront our mortality and impermanence in the digital realm on WNYC a few weeks ago. I’m pleased with how the conversation came out, and if you’ve got...

I lament the end of the personal CMS market; I was happy to back Ghost on Kickstarter today for the same reason that I back pretty much any effort at making blogging software — I think these tools matter. I find it interesting, and telling, that...

When I wrote about the web we lost a few months ago, I thought the idea that we’d strayed from some of the philosophical and cultural underpinnings of the social web’s early days would be of note to a few old-timers like me, and that most folks would...

One of my favorite aspects of the infrastructure of the web is that the way we refer to web browsers in a technical context: User Agents. Divorced from its geeky context, the simple phrase seems to be laden with social, even political,...

We have the obligation to never speak of our concerns without suggesting our solutions. I’ve been truly gratified to watch the response to The Web We Lost over the last few days; It’s become one of the most popular things I’ve ever written and has...

Update: A few months after this piece was published, I was invited by Harvard’s Berkman Center to speak about this topic in more detail. Though the final talk is an hour long, it offers much more insight into the topic, and I hope you’ll give it a...

Most users on the web spend most of their time in apps. The most popular of those apps, like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Tumblr and others, are primarily focused on a single, simple stream that offers a river of news which users can easily scroll...

Right now, there’s no App Store for Amazon EC2. Today’s just-announced “Google Compute Engine” isn’t plugged in to Google Play, the Android Music and app store. Microsoft seems to be moving toward unifying the various Windows and Zune and XBox stores...

On Sunday, I interviewed Nick Denton at SXSW about Gawker Media, commenting culture on the web, and a good bit of the history of professional blogging. In advance of the conversation, I began a conversation with Elizabeth Spiers, Choire Sicha,...

A few nice conversations around the web, either in response to or inspired by what I’ve been talking about here: My favorite TechCrunch post in a long time is Jon Evans’ Scheming Intentions, which outlines a simple way that native mobile apps could...

Today, ThinkUp is out of beta and available for free. If you have a presence on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ and know how to run a PHP/MySQL app on a web server (or on EC2), you should install it and get it started now. ThinkUp will collect all of...

Hmm, lots of interesting responses to If your website’s full of assholes, it’s your fault, and even more interesting conversation about the topic of commenting culture in general. A few highlights from the last few days: My wonderful friend Caterina...

One of the first questions venture capital investors ask people who make tech products and tech startups is if the entrepreneurs behind them are just trying to have a “lifestyle business”. It’s a euphemistic term, usually used with a slightly...

Great news for the web today, some of the smartest folks I know are doing what they do best: Making the web better. Take Paul Ford’s thoughts on “Why Wasn’t I Consulted?“, the driving inspiration behind much of what happens on the modern web. It was...

The new Twitter is here! The new Twitter is here! Besides sowing discontent in our household by giving me access to the new user interface before my wife’s account has been upgraded, the big new feature of the update to venerable old Twitter.com is a...

One interesting pattern I’ve noticed popping up around my favorite new apps these days is that they follow what I’d call a “cloudtop” design. I thought I’d share my own notes on this pattern primarily so that people I’m talking to know what I’m...