Wait, what’s a bookmarklet?
Published: October 25, 2023
How this one small browser quirk turned into a tool used by countless people for decades.
Remembering Molly, one of the greats
Published: September 7, 2023
I just learned that Molly Holzschlag has passed. She was a tireless advocate for the principles of the open web. […]
AOL Pretends to be the Internet
Published: September 6, 2023
In 1994, Ted Leonsis was the head of the new media marketing firm he created, Redgate Communications, spun out six […]
When the wizards of the web met
Published: August 1, 2023
On July 28, 1993, a group of web pioneers met in a small room for a few days. For many, it was the first time they had ever met.
The web’s most important decision
Published: April 30, 2023
I got a bit caught up this month, so I had to delay a couple of things, but I’ll be […]
Reading about the dot-com era
Published: February 21, 2023
There is a lot out there about the dot-com bubble, and its subsequent burst. I tried to limit the scope […]
History of the Web, the First 10 Chapters
Published: February 7, 2023
This is it! As of today, I’ve put all of the chapters I’ve written up on it’s own site. I’ve also […]
Mosaic in the rear view
Published: January 24, 2023
The Mosaic browser was released thirty years ago. It’s credited with a lot of firsts. When I wrote about Mosaic […]
Maybe we change things up a bit?
Published: January 10, 2023
I started this newsletter over five years ago. It started with a timeline and a single post. As I dug into research, I […]
AJAX without the X: The History of JSON
Published: December 13, 2022
The history of JSON is the history of the people that created it, and what they set out to do with the software they wrote.
“Playboy’s body with the New Yorker’s brain”
Published: November 8, 2022
On the early web, some content pioneers experimented with interactive, community-fed, literate smut.