Head of Editorial at Latent Space, a leading AI engineering publication · Internet historian at cybercultural.com · Founded ReadWriteWeb (2003–2012) · 🥝 in 🇬🇧
Public Key
npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Profile Code
nprofile1qqs9j9y34eem9pmld2p06qaf02068wspdzzvn24yh67yt2v25rutv2spz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qlpn6pa
Show more details
Published at
2026-07-30T15:37:01Z Event JSON
{
"id": "07fbd0b5784a51b93a3cdaf172abba1b5951f76d88a956b8ffc499b60974bd9b" ,
"pubkey": "591491ae73b2877f6a82fd03a97a9fa3ba016884c9aaa4bebc45a98aa0f8b62a" ,
"created_at": 1785425821 ,
"kind": 0 ,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://mastodon.social/users/ricmac",
"activitypub"
],
[
"client",
"Mostr",
"31990:6be38f8c63df7dbf84db7ec4a6e6fbbd8d19dca3b980efad18585c46f04b26f9:mostr",
"wss://relay.ditto.pub"
]
],
"content": "{\"name\":\"Richard MacManus\",\"about\":\"Head of Editorial at Latent Space, a leading AI engineering publication · Internet historian at cybercultural.com · Founded ReadWriteWeb (2003–2012) · 🥝 in 🇬🇧\",\"picture\":\"https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/000/154/660/original/42a6dc5f0879baed.png\",\"banner\":\"https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/headers/000/154/660/original/caab7295787dd5f6.png\",\"nip05\":\"[email protected] \",\"fields\":[[\"Personal website\",\"https://ricmac.org\"],[\"Latent Space (work)\",\"https://www.latent.space\"],[\"Internet history blog\",\"https://cybercultural.com\"],[\"Alt a/c\",\"@[email protected] \"]]}" ,
"sig": "700ddd1dde6abc2139d52ab01ac6fd983838158f2ec3e1d7205d3468ee56e0c32331927088c3f0ce30f40b86cd0060950e10f6be232f6fee367cda940d7bb873"
}
Last Notes npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus YES!!! In all honesty, I have struggled to post to Mastodon ever since I started my professional focus on the agentic web (after losing my journalism job in Feb, I am trying to get a one-man consulting biz off the ground, focused on Web x AI). I think there is a very healthy debate to be had here about how the open web can benefit from agentic tech…and tbh, can actually take the lead on this if folks get behind it. Controversial, I know. Glad #FediForum is discussing it. https://www.timothychambers.net/2026/04/29/a-conversation-spinning-out-of.html npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus As part of my ongoing effort to bootstrap a one-man consulting business, I'm publishing more regularly on my personal website. Here's my latest -> Agentic web patterns: what Web 2.0 taught me npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus This weekend I began #blogging again like it was 2003. Leaflet, which is an AT Protocol product, reminds me a lot of Radio Userland in 2003 (when I started ReadWriteWeb). It has an informal quality and it encourages community inter-linking. I also like that it's integrated with Bluesky, so comments and even trackbacks are potentially much easier than e.g. using Webmentions with Mastodon. I want ActivityPub to go this direction, too. I expand on all this in my Leaflet: https://ricmac.leaflet.pub/3mjcsrphlnc25 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Most people think AI will reduce the importance of websites. I think the opposite is happening — but in a very different way. Here's how I'm looking at the emerging Agentic Web, including its opportunities for web publishers and developers...and the very real threats, too. https://ricmac.org/2026/04/07/the-agentic-web/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Apparently it’s 20 years since Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet. On that same day, 21 March 2006, I was blathering on about “microcontent design” on ReadWriteWeb. This was the feeds world that web geeks like me wanted to become a reality: i.e. web standards-based feeds, using RSS/Atom, structured blogging, microformats, etc. Little did we know that Twitter would introduce the concept of proprietary feeds to the internet…and that would win out over web standards. https://web.archive.org/web/20060508071004/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microcontent_de.php npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I really enjoyed this video… HyperCard was so good, I remember using it in the early 90s, before the Web emerged. https://sigmoid.social/@Dreamwieber/116158184946426071 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Awesome! https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/03/a-new-share-button/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus 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 (@nprofile…7epg) improbably created one of the first commercial websites. https://cybercultural.com/p/1993-mtv-internet/ #WebDesignHistory npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus 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 (e.g. personal web design vs platform peer pressure). I invite you to subscribe now for weekly updates via email or RSS. https://cybercultural.com/p/history-of-web-design/ #WebDesignHistory npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus This is a very smart marketing ploy, to be the only non-AI browser. But it’s wise they have left the door open a little for if/when AI shrugs off the issues that currently dog it: “We will continue building a browser for curious minds, power users, researchers, and anyone who values autonomy. If AI contributes to that goal without stealing intellectual property, compromising privacy or the open web, we will use it. If it turns people into passive consumers, we will not.” https://vivaldi.com/blog/keep-exploring npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…glz5 That’s partly why I decided to call my website an “online magazine”, although I’m not 100% convinced that’s the right term either. But let me know if you have any ideas :) https://cybercultural.com/p/indie-web-report-2025/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus 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, and the role of the fediverse within it. https://cybercultural.com/p/indie-web-report-2025/ #IndieWeb npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus 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. https://cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-2002/ #InternetHistory #Blogging npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus 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). https://cybercultural.com/p/ipod-2002/ #InternetHistory npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…sxvw Yes, there is absolutely a disconnect here between the “copyleft” crowd and AI. I think the copyleft proponents, which btw is a massive and powerful faction on both Mastodon and Bluesky, tend to argue against AI on the grounds that it is slop. They ignore the potential value in AI. Whereas I am much more aligned with Ishiguro’s stance that creators of all kind have a right to own their content and seek some kind of permission and compensation structure from AI companies. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus What we now know as the “social web” — or Web 2.0 — didn’t arrive until around 2004. But the first inklings of it were emerging a couple of years before. As usual, music was the harbinger. In this week's Cybercultural, I look at the beginnings of Last.fm and Audioscrobbler. https://cybercultural.com/p/lastfm-audioscrobbler-2002/ #InternetHistory #OnlineMusic npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I want to shout out the 2001 bloggers I mentioned in this post, some of whom are on Mastodon (albeit haven't necessarily visited for a while...come back to the open social web!): @nprofile…ns9h, @nprofile…hp04, @nprofile…kzty, @nprofile…pezm, @nprofile…xf8g, @nprofile…a0ng, @nprofile…jgwn, @nprofile…mmlq, @nprofile…azsk, @nprofile…5vrz, @nprofile…2ype, @nprofile…tyr9 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus 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. https://cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-2001/ #InternetHistory #Blogging npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus 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/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Today, October 21, 2025, there is a rally in San Francisco in support of @nprofile…8vq4. 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 @nprofile…mwft and long live the Internet Archive! https://cybercultural.com/p/wayback-machine-launch-2001/ #InternetHistory npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus The latest issue of Web Technology News (WTN) has just been published. This week I focus on the web-based ChatGPT Apps platform, but there's also #FediForum action, other open social web news, and web platform opportunities. https://webtechnology.news/openai-turns-chatgpt-into-a-web-app-platform/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Here’s my writeup of #FediForum (the openings at least). Loved the message of @nprofile…mpj6’s keynote — everything big starts small — and I was impressed by the fedi products showcased: @nprofile…803y ( @nprofile…perq), Bounce ( @nprofile…hx87, @nprofile…ny03), Frequency ( @nprofile…z8ge), CrowdBucks ( @nprofile…vwu2) & more. Let’s keep this energy going! Thanks @nprofile…vmmn & @nprofile…avtr for the great event again. https://thenewstack.io/everything-big-starts-small-building-open-social-web-apps/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Starter packs coming to Mastodon 👀 https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/10/our-ideas-about-packs/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus The personal abuse being directed at Bluesky’s CEO is deeply uncomfortable to read. Call me old fashioned, but it is never acceptable. I especially hate seeing that stuff from anonymous accounts that have cartoon avatars. It’s ok to debate the technical merits or otherwise of moderation, but not ok to throw personal insults around. I always block that kind of thing, in part because I think personal insults are cowardly. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I'm currently working on my next "What the Internet Was Like in..." post for Cybercultural, this time for the year 2000. Wondering if anyone has specific memories about Flash websites that year? Or blogging, or social news sites like MetaFilter and Kuro5hin. Do let me know what comes to mind for you re the web in 2000... npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I'm curious what the W3C means by "re-engage" and "new audiences" here: "We have refreshed our logo to reflect the new type of organization we have become — an organization that wants to re-engage with our community, and reach new audiences." npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus This week on Cybercultural, let's re-live the Year of Napster: Shawn Fanning wearing a Metallica shirt to the 2000 MTV Awards, Lars Ulrich testifying to Senate and whining to the media (but in retrospect, was he right after all?!), Judge Patel calling Napster a monster, the media dreaming of a "heavenly jukebox", and — amid it all — a new legal alternative quietly emerges: SoundJam (soon to be known as iTunes). https://cybercultural.com/p/napster-itunes-2000/ #InternetHistory #Napster #iTunes npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I’ve been re-watching this last couple of nights. Triumph of the Nerds, tv show from 1996 by Robert X Cringley. I also loved his book, Accidental Empires, on which the tv series is based. Such good production and he speaks to all the main players (Gates, Jobs, Woz, et al). I also discovered recently (via Wikipedia) that Cringely was a stage name, which I hadn’t realized before. I’m not sure what he is doing now…70-ish and maybe struggling, house burned down, etc. https://youtu.be/ACt6xsMt5Uk?si=ClVjptyEoWvwg7rr npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Another classic Web 2.0 company gets bought by Bending Spoons, which also owns Evernote, MeetUp and WeTransfer. Vimeo used to be *the* place to post high quality videos; e.g. pop stars used to prefer Vimeo to YouTube. https://www.theverge.com/news/775701/vimeo-bending-spoons-acquisition npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I just checked my latest Google Search Console report for Cybercultural. Couple of notable trends, that I think apply to other indie websites too: npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Latest issue of Web Technology News has just gone out: https://webtechnology.news/wtn-3-xslt-heat-cool-fedi-apps-web-uis-in-agents/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Ghost or Substack? Eleventy or WordPress? Newsletter or blog...or online magazine? There are a lot of choices these days in online publishing, so I've detailed my own recent experiences in this post. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I admit, I am fascinated by how X users see the internet. I think some of them genuinely don’t know what websites are. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus So much for the "put your link in the comments" hack that LinkedIn perpetuates. I'm not sure what's worse: the throttled distribution (277 views, yet I have >500 connections and supposedly 3,300 followers); OR the pitiful 24 views on the 'link in comments'. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Gary Marcus is not impressed. https://open.substack.com/pub/garymarcus/p/gpt-5-overdue-overhyped-and-underwhelming?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…fv4z According to X users, the web is the "old world." https://thenewstack.io/mcp-ui-aims-to-replace-old-world-websites-with-ai-agent-uis/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I disagree with the whole premise of this article (which btw is far too long — it’s clearly been written for machines). “But the web isn’t human-first anymore,” he writes. WRONG. That’s what big tech wants you to believe. My websites are written for humans. Ok, I accept I need to figure out how to make a living from that in this AI era…but the Web is human-first for me, and always will be. That’s non-negotiable. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…4tpe This is literally me (my home office is above the garage) :) npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I decided to start a Ghost blog after its 6.0 upgrade and what seems like full integration with the fediverse (ref @nprofile…wj47). My new site: https://webtechnology.news. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus It appears I have a new catchphrase: "don't POSSE to X" npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus As usual, @nprofile…eznj explains things so well. It made me think about whether I am happy with my RSS Reader. I currently use Feedly, which I have used basically since Google Reader’s demise. I’ve always loved web-based readers (nothing will ever replace my beloved Bloglines, RIP), but I also have great respect for NetNewsWire and some other apps. So let’s have it, a big conversation about what is THE BEST RSS Reader in 2025. Pls comment with your personal fave (and why). https://www.citationneeded.news/curate-with-rss/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus The Web is made of people…who increasingly get tricked into viewing slop by AI. https://mastodon.social/@Sarahp/114944354954013310 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus "Sure, we still write and publish blog posts, but back then, the blogs were the network. The global network of blogs were a self-sustaining matrix of content. Now, social media is where the relational and conversational world is, and websites are just content." npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…q54u I’m about 75% of my way through this book and it is very good…and challenging! I will say it’s pretty obvious why it hasn’t got much reception: he absolutely pillories some of the most influential voices on Bluesky and Mastodon. He was a contrary thinker who cut against the grain of accepted internet wisdom. I’m still forming my opinions on this, but I admire his independent thinking. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus "AI summarization is rapidly tearing down a business model that has worked for decades. Unless there is an agreed upon business model that is accessible to all players including small publishers and long-tail AI startups, we may lose the diversity of opinions and perspectives that have given us the open web we currently enjoy." @nprofile…urwu https://everwas.com/2025/07/publishing-in-an-agentic-ai-world/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I spoke to Gent Hito, CEO of /n software, and @nprofile…8u2y about XMLUI, a new components builder that takes its inspiration from Visual Basic in the 1990s, except it's for React components and modern CSS. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Out of sheer boredom on a Saturday post-dinner, I opened up Threads (I no longer post there) and saw this cry for help. Poor bastards… #MetaWorld #AOLvibes npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I wrote up how I'm now thinking about the structure of my website, Cybercultural. Basically, I've borrowed the 'seasons' concept from podcasting (and tv). Remember how blogging was — and still is — defined by reverse-chronological? Well I think websites / newsletters / blogs in this era need something more akin to digital gardens. I reckon seasons is a good way to structure it, but let me know your thoughts. https://cybercultural.com/p/seasons/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Some feel-good vibes from this blog post (the web dev world does indeed have some awesome people in it, if you look outside of X), but also thanks Alex for the OPML file — added that to my RSS Reader just now! npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus “For now, many of us still approach A.I. as outsiders — nonnative users, shaped by analog habits, capable of seeing the difference between now and then. But the generation growing up with A.I. will learn to think and write in its shadow. For them, the chatbot won’t be a tool to discover — as Netscape was for me — but part of the operating system itself. And that shift, from novelty to norm, is the profound transformation we’re only beginning to grapple with.” npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…8hjr thanks, but how many of these are old sites? Cool list though :) npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Like a greedy LLM, I'm looking for new blogrolls to hoover up for my @nprofile…uy2j algorithm. Any suggestions for classic sites or blogs that had links aplenty to feast on? npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus “Does 'here to stay' mean we bet our future society on a technology that is 99% owned by a handful of private corporations? 'Here to stay' can't be a gloss for giving up.” https://mastodon.social/@mtrc/114752228042345798 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Oh no…now Meta is automatically sharing our private messages to its AI. As far as I can tell, you can only turn it off for each message thread, one at a time (and there seems to be no option to turn it off *at all* for group threads!). Yet another privacy disaster from Facebook. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus One of the ways to get Mastodon more visibility across the normieverse is to add your link to @nprofile…kq0m. e.g. I requested that one of my Mastodon posts about the OpenAI browser news be added (I thought it added good context) and within a minute or two it was up there. It's a small way to promote the fediverse, but it helps when people see more Mastodon (or indeed indie blog) links on Techmeme. Note: the button, on the bottom-right, only displays on the desktop version of Techmeme (not mobile). npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Don’t fall for this again, hundreds of millions of people. https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/07/threads-is-nearing-xs-daily-app-users-new-data-shows/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Started reading this tonight. An intriguing book…and challenging to some of my own beliefs about digital technology. He also is very critical of some well-known left-wing media figures prominent in the fediverse and Bluesky (I won’t name names, but you can guess). Too early to say whether I will subscribe to his theories, but I admire his contrarian take on tech. He died in 2023. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Love this guy’s expression. “What are *you* looking at, buster?!” #BirdBuddy #BirdsOfMastodon npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus This is the kind of stuff that finally made me quit Threads, just as I have X. Also see my recent post about the various ways Threads fails to federate at even the most basic level: https://mastodon.social/@ricmac/114744386097094353 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Another one bites the dust… #XThreads npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus “We need big global servers for the people who want them, and we need local servers for people who want them, and we need language-specific servers for people who want them. None of these are mutually exclusive.” https://toot.wales/@jaz/114779003033073652 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus “I think the new web aesthetic is about getting active again. Platforms encourage passivity. They want us to stay still and scrolling, looking at what the algo wants to show us. Like, swipe, repeat. But the new web aesthetic is non-linear. It encourages you to move from one site to another, to dive down rabbit holes, and crucially, to continue sharing what you find.” npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Question for @nprofile…jpw4 users: is anyone syndicating their site to the fediverse using #ActivityPub, similar to what Ghost is doing (eg @nprofile…wj47); and if so, how are you doing this? i.e. making your site a first-class citizen of the fediverse. I know there was this project a few years ago by @nprofile…gzls, but not sure if it’s currently being used: https://github.com/LewisDaleUK/eleventy-plugin-activity-pub npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus #Threads #QuasiFederation https://henshaw.social/@jon/114745170107201068 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus It took me ages to find screenshots of BowieNet as it looked on launch in September 1998, but I finally found some beauties. Oh, and I explain how BowieNet not only became the default online community for David Bowie fans, it also anticipated the social networks that would emerge in the 2000s, like Facebook and Reddit. https://cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-launch-1998/ #InternetHistory #BowieForever npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Threads is allegedly part of the fediverse, yet I'm nowhere near the point of being able to ask Threads users to follow my Mastodon profile. Attached is how my Mastodon profile looks over there. Some of the issues: npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Headless browsers like Browserbase and Playwright have a huge role to play in AI agent technology. Whether we like it or not, it's increasingly going to be agents that browse our websites moving forward. So Browserbase, I think, is mining a very profitable part of the AI dev stack here. https://thenewstack.io/why-headless-browsers-are-a-key-technology-for-ai-agents/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I actually like that cultural folks (musicians, magazines, writers, music bloggers, artists, etc) are starting to show up on Bluesky now. I remember checking last year if Electronic Sound magazine was on open social, but at the time they were just on X. So this is progress. I don’t expect them to ever be on Mastodon, but that’s ok…different open social media platforms can have different vibes; indeed I think that’s better. I kind of go to Bluesky for the culture stuff. https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ev4fhapxcvyjk2ldlwvcfzoq/post/3ls4qmfa3zc2i npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…3wy7 @nprofile…zezf @nprofile…fflq @nprofile…007f @nprofile…jpfa @nprofile…qtlf @nprofile…9ync Great stuff, Tim! I know progress is being made eg on search, but I like when the community’s leaders (like yourself) give these issues some air and tough love. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Looks like Threads has been hacked… npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus This week's Cybercultural article looks back on 1998, the year of the portal: Excite, Netscape Netcenter, Yahoo, AOL, MSN and others all competing for eyeballs and trying to be sticky. But with so many portals, some inevitably failed. https://cybercultural.com/p/portals-1998/ #InternetHistory npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…hyrk I currently can’t even find this special freaking feed in their app… npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus We are aliens from another planet. “This is certainly the most visible fediverse content has ever been inside of Threads, but the world of ActivityPub is still not a first-class citizen inside of Threads. You still have to opt-in to sharing your posts, you still have to have a separate account to connect to, and you’ll still have to go to the dedicated feed to see what’s new. (If you post something and get fediverse replies, those are still separate too.)” https://mastodon.social/@verge/114699692468491981 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus This poll has gotten traction, with nearly 3/4 of people so far preferring "personal website". But if you are old school and still call it a home page, or you identify as a blogger, or if you've got actual design talent and call it a digital garden, there's still time to have your say. Final results later tonight my time :) npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Updated my Tumblr (velvetsfan.com) for the first time in months…was listening to some music and wanted to post about it somewhere. I miss soup.io, which was a smaller, quirkier version of Tumblr, and where I used to post artsy-fartsy stuff that didn’t fit into my tech blogging world. Tumblr was the one that survived, but now it’s owned by one of the self-important crazy Tech Lords and so I am not so keen on using it. Is there a fedi version of Tumblr with some traction? #AskingForAFriend npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus This month marks the 30th anniversary of PHP being released to the world. To find out how PHP has evolved over the years, its technical improvements over the past decade, and the importance of PHP frameworks like Laravel and Symfony (and cool new tools like FrankenPHP), I spoke to PHP core developer Derick Rethans. https://thenewstack.io/the-herd-is-strong-php-and-its-developer-ecosystem-at-30/ #PHP npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I watched Mountainhead over the past 2 nights (couldn’t get through it in one night, it made me too anxious!). It was ok entertainment in the end, but a bit too over-the-top for my liking. Of course you recognize the All-In Podcast crew, Musk, Altman and the rest of that lot in the 4 main characters. Maybe too close to the bone for many of us who work in tech? I enjoyed Succession a lot more, because it didn’t try so hard to be a parody. It kind of felt like sitting thru an All-In episode. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus In 1997, the first browser war began amid new internet trends like 'push' and DHTML. Meanwhile, instant messaging apps like ICQ and AIM became popular and GeoCities achieved 1 million users. https://cybercultural.com/p/internet-1997/ #InternetHistory npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Here's my writeup of #FediForum, in which I ask the question: is the fediverse making meaningful progress vs. centralized platforms? The post includes @nprofile…74c4's excellent video and has discussion of @nprofile…zwgs's presentation, Bounce (by @nprofile…hx87 & @nprofile…ny03), Surf (by @nprofile…w8ra & @nprofile…wz37), Channels.org (by @nprofile…t5gc & @nprofile…gs0x team), & Bandwagon (by @nprofile…kzgj). Thx also @nprofile…vmmn & @nprofile…avtr for FediForum. The headline is via Christine: "we can’t succeed without joy." https://thenewstack.io/bringing-joy-back-to-the-web-fediverse-vs-centralized-apps/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I’m sure we will hear a lot about Bill Atkinson (RIP) over the next few days, but I want to point out the huge influence of #HyperCard on the Web. @nprofile…rst7 himself mentioned it in his original WWW proposal (https://cybercultural.com/p/1990-programming-the-world-wide-web/), early web browsers like ViolaWWW were modeled on HyperCard (https://cybercultural.com/p/1992-web-vs-gopher/), and even JavaScript owed a debt to it (HyperCard included an object oriented scripting language called HyperTalk; https://cybercultural.com/p/1995-the-birth-of-javascript/). npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…xt5t Is this the product you have, Andy? https://mybirdbuddy.eu/shop/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I’ve read through Paul’s posts and highly recommend them if you’re interested in the future of the Web in the AI era. Given his background in Google’s Chrome team, lots of food for thought here. https://status.kinlan.me/@paul/114626391155841925 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Now this is a detail I hadn’t known about the launch of Netscape Navigator in December 1994. From ‘Speeding the Net’, a 1998 book about Netscape by Quittner and Slatalla. #InternetHistory npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus This is becoming a big problem for all web publishers. I’ve noticed large non-human spikes on Cybercultural and the same thing is happening (on a much larger scale) at my employer The New Stack. Seems like an under-reported SEO issue…kind of reminds me of when the likes of Mashable suddenly had hundreds of thousands more RSS subscribers overnight a few times back in Web 2.0 — ie this “engagement” is not human. https://mastodon.cloud/@slashdot/114614987765863790 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus "My website is ugly because I made it" https://goodinternetmagazine.com/my-website-is-ugly-because-i-made-it/ npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I look back on the 3 musketeers of web design in the 1990s: Jeffrey Zeldman, David Siegel, and Jakob Nielsen. Each had a distinct web design philosophy (and if you read till the end, you'll discover which one I believe 'won' in the long term). I focus in particular on 1997, which is when Flash and CSS emerged. But I also look back on the careers of the 3 gurus from our 2025 perspective. https://cybercultural.com/p/web-design-1997/ #InternetHistory #WebDesign npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus It's pretty rare to find a tech publication/personality these days that doesn't still use, and by extension promote, X/Twitter. I'd wager that most of the indie web proponents whose names you know are still posting on X. So it was refreshing to discover today that @nprofile…cnpa is resolutely OFF X/Twitter and uses Mastodon & Bluesky. Frankly I think we need more of this 'walk the talk' behaviour. Kudos @nprofile…e8sw, @nprofile…zmt2 and team. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Turns out there is a current movie called "Companion". I wonder if Sam has seen it: "The protagonist, Iris, initially believes she is human, but when she discovers she is a companion robot controlled by an app, the film shifts into an existential horror about identity and free will." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_(film) npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…xlhv He really was. The older I get, the more I admire his genius for changing things up for each project — right up till Blackstar, which was an incredible album. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus New on Cybercultural: During the mid-1990s, David Bowie's website went from a storytelling structure for the Outside album, into a striking, grunge-inspired design for Earthling. At the same time, Bowie fan sites emerged. https://cybercultural.com/p/david-bowie-website-1995-1997/ #InternetHistory #WebDesign #BowieForever npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus While I was writing my Web 2.0 memoir, I realised that I didn’t have nearly enough screenshots from that era. The ones I did have were usually done with Skitch. I wish I’d used it more though! https://indieweb.social/@classicweb/114248027432834035 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…xlhv Yep I use Unsplash and Flickr, but I’m more struggling with what kind of image to use for that feature. I need some go-to tactics, or maybe some kind of template for it… npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Looking for some ‘feature image’ advice from the fediverse: one of the things I spend way too much time on with Cybercultural (my internet history website) is finding a good image to use for a post’s feature image. Eg I have an upcoming 1996 internet post that I am struggling to source a feature image for. Screenshots of websites don’t work well for feature images, and I also have to make sure it can be made into a 1,280 x 720 image. Anyone have ideas or tactics to reduce my time spent on this? npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…p8x9 Ha, just came across my first Radio Userland site, which I started almost exactly 23 years ago today. npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…xlhv Love it! It’s kind of like a “start page”, a home page that we used in Web 2.0 (Netvibes et al). npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Ah, the glory days of Plain Blue Links. Back when we knew how to link to each other. And of course, @nprofile…p8x9 improved that situation even more by building blogging tools and RSS. https://indieweb.social/@classicweb/114205823193887379 npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I know things are bad on the open web…but it could get even worse. Imagine any of these scenarios: npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus Wow, TechCrunch got acquired by a private equity firm that has also bought a bunch of other old tech pubs: "Regent is trying to pull together a portfolio of tech news sites and is eager to invest in news. Earlier this week, it acquired Foundry, which houses a slew of online tech publications, such as PCWorld, Macworld and TechAdvisor." https://www.axios.com/2025/03/21/yahoo-techcrunch-regent npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus @nprofile…psd8 Thank-you Hannah, I really appreciate the shoutout — it's made my Friday :) npub1ty2frtnnk2rh765zl5p6j75l5waqz6yyex42f04ugk5c4g8ckc4q34u65n Richard MacManus I know feeds have trained us all not to click on links to blog posts, so here's the summary of my web values:
