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Blogging Saved the Internet

Posted by Rick Ellis on March 18, 2008

It seems forever ago that the internet bubble burst in the late 1990’s.  For those who study crowd phenomena there is a classic case study here, in which otherwise calm and rational individuals collectively lost their minds.

Charles Mackay, in 1841, wrote a famous book called Extraordinary Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, in which he analyzed crowd behavior.  That book is still cited today, usually in relation to investments and markets.  One of the strongest human motivators is the fear of missing out on something big, which precisely describes the lunacy of the 1990’s.  Scads of companies with no revenue model, offering no compelling product, going public, while the optimistic mass invested their life savings into them.  Crazy.

An entire book could be written on the internet bubble, but from my perspective the biggest problem with the internet in the 1990’s was that it was boring.  Being a geek at the time, I was mesmerized by the internet.  But what made it interesting to me was the technology—the promise this new communication medium held.  Most people, however, were not geeks, and they just didn’t understand it.

I recall a friend of mine at the time asking what I saw in the internet.  He thought it was utterly dull.  “No”, I argued, “you just don’t get it!”, which of course he didn’t.  Most people didn’t.  All they saw was an endless collection of static web pages that never changed, with the exception of that dreaded <blink> tag, loading slowly at 56K.  The internet was little more then endless brochures.  Who reads brochures?  No one, really.

There were some dynamic sites at the time, but these were large companies like newspapers that could afford expensive content management systems.  And of course there were websites trying to sell stuff.  Mostly, though, the web was a dull, lifeless place.

What changed all that?  Blogs.  When blogs began emerging the web became a conversation.  Communities began emerging, as people with similar interests began congregating to dialog with one another.  I truly believe that blogging was the single biggest factor in changing people’s interest in and perception of the web.

I vividly recall the first time I encountered a blog.  What a clever idea, I thought, to allow people to comment and add to the discourse!  When I realized that site was powered by a free tool called Grey Matter, I literally spent all night long exploring it, and bouncing from one blog to another, mesmerized by the possibilities.  I was so captivated by this new medium that I soon began thinking about developing my own software.  For me, personal publishing tools were like the advent of the personal computer:  Revolutionary.  They changed the world.