Fifteen years ago today I started this blog during SXSW. Although I didn’t think much of it at the time, because Twitter hadn’t been invented yet, my first post was essentially a microblog post. 145 characters and no title. (Titles on the old posts were added later during the migration to Movable Type.)
I’ve written about 1100 posts since then, and another 600 microblog posts. Some of my favorites last year:
- Twitter at 10 years. Reflecting on the state of Twitter and where to go from here.
- Today's social networks are broken. Partly a mission statement for Micro.blog.
- Core Intuition 259 transcript. Daniel and I discussing Apple's new design book after the election.
- Proud to have voted for Hillary. Still pretty upset about November.
- Podcasting lock-in and the lesson from Penn Station. What happened to Penn Station in New York, and similarities between podcasting and blogging.
- Kapeli's suspension is a test for Apple. One of many posts about App Store rejections. Apple's power over indie developers is a recurring theme.
- Apple apologists. There's no need to defend Apple when they make mistakes.
- Blog when you disagree. Why blogging longer thoughts is still very important.
- Is this even possible? Visiting a new coffee shop every day for a month. After that I worked from libraries.
And the year before:
- A great developer can come from anywhere. This was not universally loved when I published it, but it seems to have outlasted the controversy. One of the best things I've written in a while.
- Every device needs the web. Reacting to the lack of WebKit on tvOS.
- Marketing, mission, movement. The best marketing is creating products that people can believe in.
- Two weeks notice. Not a single post, but a bunch of posts with the #2weeks tag, chronicling my work and thoughts as I quit my regular job after 14 years.
- I think it's a bust. My thoughts on Swift not addressing the problems I have. Essentially still true.
- Don't solve everything. I avoided trying to figure out cross-site replies. And now we have Webmention.
- Why Ello isn't enough. Purely centralized will never last.
- WWDC 2015, basketball, and cartoons. My trip to San Francisco.
- Jordan Breeding. Remembering and being inspired by others.
And earlier:
- The unremarkable yesterday. Why I like to blog and write in a journal.
- Defining a microblog post. A few guidelines that are simple enough to last.
- The third era of WWDC. Written in 2014, but appropriate again with the move back to San Jose.
- Ending the App Store top 200. Curation and learning from Beats Music.
- Waiting for App.net's killer app. I was very hopeful about App.net. Shortly after this we shipped Sunlit.
- What the Tweet Marker award means. Most of my Tweet Marker posts are technical and not worth re-linking. This one is a little more timeless.
- Permanence. Reading this again several years later, I can't believe it's taken me this long to build a publishing platform.
- Carousel. That great scene from the first season of Mad Men.
- 30% of the future. From 2011, so on first glance it doesn't seem to age well. After all, services are an important part of Apple's business now. But I think I was right.
- Healthcare fallback plan. 8 years ago was a very different time politically. Includes some quotes I still like.
- Go without food. On sacrifice and finishing your projects.
Whether you started visiting this blog years ago or just today, thanks for reading. I hope to still be writing in another 15 years. (I’ll be 56 years old. My kids will be grown up. Nearly everything will be different.)
Stretching time out has a way of highlighting what matters. And if it matters, it’s worth writing down. I hope you’ll join me for the next chapter as I try to move indie microblogging forward with Micro.blog.
