12 years ago to this day, I started a blog called ReadWrite/Web. It’s now called ReadWrite.
Twelve years is a long time in the Internet world. Back in 2003, Facebook had just been launched from Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room, there was not yet a YouTube or Twitter, Apple’s most popular product was the iPod, and the height of mobile technology was a WAP browser.
Today, three of the services I just mentioned are among the top 10 websites in the world (Facebook, YouTube and Twitter), mobile rules the Internet, and Apple’s iPod is all but obsolete.
I’m a bit sentimental, so I like to raise a toast to the founding of ReadWrite on the 20th of April every year. But I know full well that the Internet has only one speed and one direction: fast and forward.
In another 12 years, wearables (or implants!) will have replaced mobile phones, the Internet of Things will be earth’s infrastructure, and Virtual Reality will be interchangeable with Real Life. Which is why I’m looking into all that stuff right now, as a writer and a consultant.
A blogger? If they still exist, I’m an amateur one now. No, I’ll always be a blogger. A blogger from an upside down timezone. One who lived in the virtual world and beamed into Silicon Valley when needed.
Here’s to the future, because ReadWrite is still going strong. My best wishes to Owen Thomas and the Wearable World team, as they continue to map the near future.
As for the past, well there’s always the Wayback Machine.
Previous anniversary posts:
It’s an honor to take up the mantel brother!
Great to see you so proud of Readwrite Richard. Congratulations.
Thanks for all the great work and opportunity Richard!