Blogging, writing to a Web Log, began crossing my radar by the late 90s. I was curious about what was going on. I heard of Dave Winer. He was a software developer. Developer of RSS, something I still use.
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of his blog Scripting News. And he is still going.
When we had Automation World up and running in late 2003, I began exploring. My first site was built on Winer’s Radio Userland—Gary’s Radio Weblog. The sales people at Automation World wanted to tie me to the brand, so I renamed it Gary Mintchell’s Feed Forward—the title of my monthly editorial.
When I left Automation World for the greener pastures of independent writer/analyst in the industrial and manufacturing market in 2013, the blog was renamed The Manufacturing Connection. The idea was emphasis on Connection. Over 21 years, I’ve written more than 3,500 posts.
The early days of live blogging CEO remarks were exciting. Walt Boyes, then of Control magazine and I had a fun competition going. The market has changed. All companies are now blogging and doing their own marketing. Most no longer support magazines or other media. I followed the fads of IIoT, Edge, AI, Cobots. This technology has become mature and somewhat stagnant. There are just a few software companies cranking out interesting products.
This is all a long time. Social media people came and went from Twitter (I was there in 2008), podcasts are big for a few (mine started in 2007). YouTubers are big in a few markets. It’s all cool. People who could never have had a voice now have the ability to broadcast a message. It’s all good.
Curation is a problem right now. The requirements for discernment on the part of listeners/readers is ever more important. If it’s easy for people to have a voice, it’s also easy for people to broadcast false and misleading ideas.
I’m happy to be able to do this. It’s been fun.