Anil Dash wrote what is probably today's most poignant piece, regarding the state of today's social web versus that of yesteryear.
"[The tech industry and its press] seldom talk about what we've lost along the way in this transition, and I find that younger folks may not even know how the web used to be."
This is a topic I find myself thinking about more and more as I become more involved with the blogging community. Anil is nicely articulating thoughts that have been bubbling under the surface of my mind for a while.
I sometimes wonder if the social web's golden age peaked during the early- to mid-2000s, a time when Flickr was king and lots of exciting things were being built, including a myriad of blogging platforms. A lot of this stuff happened before I took a serious interest in the web, and in retrospect I feel like I missed out on so much.
This is why I like occasionally poring through the archives of my favorite blogs. It's the next best thing to time-traveling back to when these people were having those thoughts and ideas, whether or not they're still relevant today.
It's also why I relish the fact that Flickr may become popular again. Flickr is one of the few communities from that era still chugging along, and I'm excited to potentially be a part of the same community that loved it originally.
Am I living in the past a bit? Maybe. But the web could use a little more magic again, and if bringing back these older communities is what it takes, then count me in.
