Colophon

Jacky's homepage on the DARPA-created, commerically-available Web. - Jacky Alciné

In your Web browser, of course. And not all of me; that'd be weird! You're using Firefox, right? You can catch up by email with 112 other folks, on a social network in the Meta, commonly known as Facebook, Threads, Blacksky in the Atmosphere or X, commonly known as Twitter as I continue to share and work on all things towards history, open digital technology, culture — and everything in between. I write essays of varying length; most recently I wrote "On the Notion of Shutting the Fuck up". I keep notes weekly and (near) daily links. Here's what I use on the regular.

Something is wrong on the internet

I’m James Bridle. I’m a writer and artist concerned with technology and culture. I usually write on my own blog, but frankly I don’t want…

This blog is on ATProto

This blog and its posts are now on ATProto, the data backend that powers Bluesky. To what end, I couldn't say just yet. I'm just playing around. This didn't involve any changes whatsoever to the website that you're looking at. It just means that when I publish a new post I also write a new record into my Personal Data Server (PDS) which includes the post's title, publication timestamp, and a URL. This gets slurped off by ATProto relays that subscribe to me and if there's anybody who cares about my posts, they get to find out about it more or less in realtime.

Weaver - Long-form writing

I grew up, like a lot of people on Bluesky, in the era of the internet where most of your online social interactions took place via text. I had a MySpace account, MSN messenger and Google Chat, I first got on Facebook back when they required a school email to sign up, I had a Tumblr, though not a LiveJournal. I was super into reddit for a long time. Big fan of Fanfiction.net and later Archive of Our Own.

Publishing · Standard Reader

Wire a personal site's own site.standard.* records by hand.

Custodians of the Internet

A revealing and gripping investigation into how social media platforms police what we post online—and the large societal impact of these decisions Most use...

Paragraph

Where writers share, grow, and get paid — one post at a time.

Publishing apps | at-store

Writing, newsletters, blogging, and reader-growth tools built to help creators publish on the open web and keep direct relationships with their audience.

I Will Never Respect A Website

If you like this piece and want to support my independent reporting and analysis, why not subscribe to my premium newsletter? It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, including

Archive

All of the posts I've ever written

Build the web you want to see

My website, James’ Coffee Blog, is now over five years old. I seldom thought about how old my website was until recently, when I looked and realised that years had passed since the single black-and-white HTML page that comprised my site. “Hyperlinks are my friend,” I said, in a playful tone whose message foreshadowed my deepening appreciation for the web and what the web could be.   Five years on, I find myself as invigorated about the web as I was at the beginning. I started what would become James’ Coffee Blog interested in blogging, seeing a personal website as a way to share words on the web. Those words would help me nurture my passion for writing. My website could, I learned, be a place for me to grow and experiment as a writer. Having a website encouraged me to ask the question what could I write today? Whether or not I published what I wrote, I was writing. I was making something. I was proud.   My passion for the web is fuelled not only by my own experiences writing, but by seeing what others make. Seeing others’ websites, I have asked myself questions like How did they make that?, spurring my interest in web design. Web design is a topic I would later find the motivation to study in greater depth.   I have been delighted by stories that people have shared, eliciting reactions in me from I see myself in this to That was fascinating! Blog posts on personal websites have made me curious, they have made me feel seen, they have satisfied my interest in learning – they have opened up new worlds, from the technical to the poetic, from the introspective to the collaborative.   When I was thinking what would be a good fit for The Good Internet Magazine – a publication whose very existence makes me excited about the future of the web – a question came to mind: “what have I learned over the years that a new web weaver would find interesting?” Here is my answer to that question.