Did MySpace Kill the Potential for Customization on Social Media?
Sure, the defaults are elegant, but they are constant reminders that you’re ultimately building castles in someone else’s sandbox, which is sad and unfortunate when you’re trying to build the coolest castle you can.
This is about far more than merely being able to customize the look of your site, although that is clearly important too.
Just Too Efficient
I wish there were a way to quantify effectiveness rather than efficiency. It is surely effectiveness that matters.
Krugman revisits pellagra to illuminate the US response to Covid-19
the United States is exceptional, in a very bad way.
It's not the only country that's exceptional, but it is exceptionally bad.
What was it like?
Anyone who thinks blogging died at some point in the past twenty years presumably just lost interest themselves, because there have always been plenty of blogs to read. Some slow down, some die, new ones appear. It’s as easy as it’s ever been to write and read blogs.
Phil Gyford's lovely look back to SXSW 2000 and the blogging around it. I don't actually have a crucial event like that, maybe BlogTalk in Vienna, which I didn't do nearly enough to record at the time.