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Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by kurthr on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:30AM (#16438173)
Kottke makes the important point that the demise of GoogleReader and decline of RSS was really the turning point in the popularity of blogs. I often wonder how things might have been (better?), if there had been a more accessible independent group of writers over the last 5 years.

I feel like Twitter, Facebook, and to a lesser extent Instagram etc would have been forced to be better by some competition as well. OTOH I have saved months of my life not reading them...

Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by locopati on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:47AM (#16438326)
Feedly is an excellent service (with great web and mobile apps) for those looking for a feedreader that is actively supported.
Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by jzawodn on Thursday February 22, 2018 @09:04AM (#16437575)
The un-cluttered URL is: http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/02/last-blog-standing-last-guy... without all that tracking junk on it.
Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by anc84 on Thursday February 22, 2018 @09:46AM (#16437843)
It's someone else's tracking junk which is actually fun because it ends up suggesting those privacy-invaders that lots of people came from "Benedict's Newsletter".
Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by glenneroo on Thursday February 22, 2018 @09:37AM (#16437785)
Thanks. Unfortunately all queries to niemanlab.org are not returning any results i.e. the site is overloaded.
Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by CiPHPerCoder on Thursday February 22, 2018 @09:50AM (#16437876)
Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by wildebaard on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:42AM (#16438273)
Which is ironic, for a blog named 'Last blog standing'.
Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by jwilk on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:52AM (#16438377)
No, "Last blog standing" is part of the article title. Said blog is kottke.org (which is up), not niemanlab.org (which is down).
Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by masona on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:06PM (#16439109)
It's an interesting point that he thinks the site would not take off if he launched it today, compared to when it started in 1998.

Similar to the early adopters of Instagram who built huge followings simply because they were there first. Anyone starting today has to face a huge headwind: the content algorithms.

Are there other examples of vestigial platforms that are leftover successes from before?

Email newsletters are the last outpost of unfiltered connection - I shudder to think of what happens when personal email dips below 100% organic reach.

Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by DamnInteresting on Thursday February 22, 2018 @12:33PM (#16439368)
It seems analogous to a forest canopy...initially the soil is rich and opportunity seems boundless. But over time old-growth trees grow and spread until they absorb most of the available sunlight, making it difficult or impossible for saplings to get started below.
Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by deyan on Thursday February 22, 2018 @08:27PM (#16443393)
I actually read Seth Godin's blog: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2018/01/an-open-note...

Where he basically says that Gmail's promotions folder acts essentially as a filter. I wonder if others have any relevant experience to share on the matter.

Re:How Jason Kottke is thinking about kottke.org at 20 by platz on Thursday February 22, 2018 @11:40AM (#16438838)
this post makes me nostalgi-sad