I’m not real active on social media. The occasional post on Fosstodon (following 53, 39 followers). I can go six months without seeing a like (is that what they call it there?) or a comment. So you can imagine my surprise when I see TWO comments in as many days (really one comment and a follow-up). From Dave Winer (@davew) no less.

For a long-time blogger like me, that’s like getting a phone call from Bob Dylan to tell you someone sent him a link to the YouTube video of you performing Blowin’ In the Wind at last year’s Elks Club Talent Night… and thought you did a good job. I can think of no one more influential in the early days of blogging than Dave Winer. The  Wikipedia page tells that story better than I could.

I’ve been sharing his insights and observations (31 posts) here since 2002, which was the year I started blogging. People have been born and grown into adulthood since then. The earliest post I could find also mentioned Robert Scoble and Chris Pirillo. Proto-bloggers, both.

This reads like an old-guy-remember-when post because, well… I’m an old guy remembering when. Before blogs came along in the late 1990’s, if you had something to say and wanted to share it with the world… a letter to the editor was pretty much it and there no certainty it would be printed. Blogging changed that.

Social media platforms pushed blogging off the online stage. Fact is, most folks didn’t have much to say and writing a post every day was just too much work. But anyone can shit-post on Facebook or Twitter and anyone did/does.

But Dave Winer never stopped blogging and I never stopped blogging.