My 2004 Blogroll

Posted on:: February 26th, 2020

Blogrolls were early social networks.

Y’see, back in the old days of the Blogosphere, there wasn’t any Facebook or Twitter. Your blog was your presence on the Web. And because people are relational, not independent autonomous agents, many bloggers posted a list of the other blogs they read and sometimes responded to. It was a way of building a networked community.

Blogrolls were good, generous things. I’ve been intending for a long time to post one on this blog again. As a first step, I went to the WayBack Machine, AKA the blessed Internet Archive, and looked up 2004 editions of this blog. I randomly chose the April 1 edition and copied its blogroll. (WARNING: Put on protective eyewear before viewing that old edition.)

Here is the blogroll, unaltered. Many of the links work because the Internet Archive, blessed be its name, automatically inserts links back into the Archive. I suspect that precious few of these blogs are still around. But they were magnificent in their day.

Akma
Jennifer Balderama
Hank Blakely
Blog Sisters
Tim Bray
Dan Bricklin
BurningBird
Marc Canter
Cory Doctorow
Dean Campaign
Betsy Devine
Paul English
Ernie the Attorney
Glenn Fleishman
Dan Gillmor
Gonzo Engaged
Mike Golby
Seth Gordon
Steve Himmer
Denise Howell
David Isenberg
Joi Ito
Jeff Jarvis
Steve Johnson
Kalilily
Pete Kaminski
Jason Kottke
Eliz. Lawley
Adina Levin
Lawrence Lessig
Living Code
Chris Locke
Chris Lydon
Joe Mahoney
Marek
Kevin Marks
Tom Matrullo
Ross Mayfield
Scott McCloud
Megnut
Peter Merholz
Misbehaving
Eric Norlin
The Obvious
O’Connor Clarke
Frank Paynter
Jonathan Peterson
Chris Pirillo
Reed/Frankston
Howard Rheingold
Dave Rogers
Jay Rosen
Scott Rosenberg
Steve Saltire
Doc Searls
Jeneane Sessum
Clay Shirky
Social Software
Halley Suitt
Gary Turner
Mary Lu W.
Dave Winer
Amy Wohl
Gary Wolf
Steve Yost