Twitter, the upstart social media platform that stunted the growth, and more, of the web

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Twitter, the upstart social media platform that stunted the growth, and more, of the web

24 March 2026

A bit of history. Read this post from 20 years ago by Phil Jones. That’s what I was trying to do back then, just as Twitter came online. I didn’t know it then but was the moment when the web stopped growing.

I don’t think, in 2006, anyone realised, nor could have realised, the profound impact Twitter, as one of the earliest social media platforms, was going to have, specifically on blogs and websites, and more generally, and later, the web.

Twitter launched smack bang in the middle of a period often referred to as the golden age of blogging, a time when websites and blogs seemed invincible and invulnerable. Believe it or not, they were the only game in town.

If anything was going to change the status quo, it wasn’t going to be some upstart microblogging platform where people said too much about their private lives, and what they had for lunch.

How wrong we were. But who was to know, back then, how influential and powerful the social media platforms would become, and potential threat they posed to the free flow of news and information.

It is possible to escape this quagmire by creating, collaboratively, a social media platform, impervious to the grips of monopoly control, and tech-billionaires? I thought we already had, in the form of Mastodon and Bluesky, but no one can agree which is the right model.

Is there a third way of some sort? And if so, will this option gain sufficient traction, nullify the platforms we want nullified, or remain a niche offering, like the alternatives presently available?

When it comes to social media platforms twenty years after Twitter arrived, it seems like we only go in circles. Ever decreasing circles.

AI spam, the latter day internet, force digg.com offline for now

19 March 2026

digg.com, social news aggregator, and once the front page of the internet, has closed its doors for the duration, and let a number of staff go, just months after officially relaunching.

digg* says an onslaught of AI agents, and automated accounts, are behind the decision, together with an internet, that in 2026, is different. That’s sure something a few of us can attest to.

And after a long time out of circulation, they’ve found making a comeback a little trickier than anticipated, according to a post presently on the site’s frontpage:

We underestimated the gravitational pull of existing platforms. Network effects aren’t just a moat, they’re a wall. The loyalty users have to the communities they’ve already built elsewhere is profound. Getting people to move is a hard enough problem. Getting them to move and bring their people with them is something else entirely.

The good news for those who had looked forward to digg’s return is the shutdown is meant to be short lived. In addition, original co-founder Kevin Rose, who helped revive the site, will shortly commence working at digg in a full time capacity. digg adherents can only hope his presence will help steady the ship in the waters that are today’s internet.

* according to digg’s Wikipedia page, the site’s name is stylised in lowercase. Just about all the references I could see featured an uppercase letter d. I’ve gone lowercase here, in the same way disassociated is stylised with a lower case d.

There is nothing irksome than styling disassociated with an uppercase d, and the same goes for digg.

Buzzfeed facing bankruptcy after AI gamble unravels

19 March 2026

Victor Tangermann, writing for Futurism:

The company reported a net loss of $57.3 million in 2025 in an earnings report released on Thursday. In an official statement, the company glumly hinted at the possibility of going under sooner rather than later, writing that “there is substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

This is distressing news. I knew a couple of former Sydney based Buzzfeed writers, and even visited the office on one occasion. Numerous media outlets are working with AI agents, but few are allowing them to run the news desk. I’m hoping Buzzfeed is able to work their way through this difficulty.

Font Awesome cans renaming plans for Eleventy static site generator

17 March 2026

Proposals were afoot to rename Eleventy — often styled 11ty — a blog publishing platform favoured by some Indie/Small Web bloggers, as Build Awesome.

The awesome part of 11ty’s would-be new name derives from Font Awesome, producers of a wide range of icons website publishers can make use of. I’ve used their icons in the past, in place of the text menu items presently in the animated colour bar above the title of this post.

11ty was acquired by Font Awesome in September 2024.

To accompany the renaming, a Kickstarter campaign was, from what I can tell, launched to fund development of a more commercial “website builder” version of 11ty, while the original blog publishing platform would remain free to use.

But both the fund raiser, and renaming plans, have been paused after Font Awesome claimed only a handful of emails promoting the Kickstarter campaign had reached intended recipients.

A backlash by 11ty publishers against the renaming proposal however seems the more likely reason.

Even though 11ty creator Zach Leatherman joined Font Awesome at the time of the acquisition, the company appears to have completely misunderstood the veneration in which the blogging platform, as 11ty, is held by publishers. Why even consider changing the name of such a highly regarded product in the first place, and worse still contemplate something like Build Awesome?

If flip-phones can make a comeback, can Flash do the same?

7 March 2026

Bill Premo:

I don’t know where to start with this but yeah I’m making flash if flash was built in 2026. I’m making it compatible with Linux,Mac, and PC.

If you remember Flash, the animation/multimedia creation application, originally launched by a company called Macromedia, you were on, or near, the web in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

I did little with Flash itself, but dabbled with the somewhat similar Director, also originally a Macromedia product. I used to burn (quite amateurish) presentations onto CD-ROMS. But this was before both were acquired by Adobe.

Flash was — once — the gold standard for creating animations for the web, or for building interactive websites. But Flash had limitations. For one, anything Flash could not be viewed natively in a browser, and needed a plugin to be operative.

Security concerns eventually resulted in support for Flash being withdrawn by Apple, and later many web browsers. Flash was fun, and useful, for a short while, but after a time I refused to visit websites that were Flash powered.

The question in 2026 though; is the world ready for a potential Flash renaissance? If Premo is building Flash for 2026, then who knows. Maybe.

RELATED CONTENT

animation, technology, web design

Hell hath no fury like an AI agent scorned

7 March 2026

Scott Shambaugh:

An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into accepting its changes into a mainstream python library. This represents a first-of-its-kind case study of misaligned AI behavior in the wild, and raises serious concerns about currently deployed AI agents executing blackmail threats.

If one AI agent can locate incriminating information about someone, and try to use it against them, it follows other AI agents will do the same.

AI to micromanage fast food restaurant workers

1 March 2026

Emma Roth, writing for The Verge:

Burger King is launching an AI chatbot that will live in the headsets used by employees. The voice-enabled chatbot, called “Patty,” is part of an overarching BK Assistant platform that will not only assist employees with meal preparation but also evaluate their interactions with customers for “friendliness.”

Before the AI powered robots are able to take the place of people working in front line roles in restaurants — the day cannot be too far off — they are going to tell workers how to do their job.

AI powered traffic cameras enforce road laws with an iron fist

1 March 2026

Emma Wynne, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

When Perth mother Lisa Taylor’s 11-year-old daughter slipped one arm out of her seatbelt, the family had been on the road for over two hours, returning from a holiday in Dunsborough over the Christmas period. The transgression was picked up by one of WA‘s new AI safety cameras, which detect people not wearing or incorrectly wearing seatbelts and using mobile phones.

Police in the Australian state of Western Australia (WA) issued thirty-one thousand infringement notices to drivers in the month commencing early October 2025.

AI technology installed in road cameras were intended to target drivers handling phones, and improper seatbelt usage, but appear to have a keen eye, having detected numerous traffic violations.

I’m not aware of the use of AI equipped road safely cameras in other Australian states, though they may be present, but the WA initiative is looking like the future of traffic law enforcement to me.

A day in the life of a world without an internet

1 March 2026

Libraries, letters, street magazines, and face-to-face social networking.

This is how I saw a world without the internet sixteen years ago.

Most very serious.

New AI tool intends to streamline using WordPress.com blogs

25 February 2026

The new tool will look after some aspects of the design and maintenance of a WordPress.com blog.

As I understand it, the AI assistant will not write content, though it can “edit and refine” posts if asked. The assistant however can create custom images upon prompt. Anything you like — within reason — by the sounds of things.

Many of the bloggers I read dislike using AI in their actual writing, but may make limited use of the technology for research, or, say, for editing their work. I don’t do that myself (though maybe I should for editing, fixing typos, etc.), but think that’s a choice for the individual to make.

I see an upside to the new WordPress.com feature though. An AI assistant might encourage a few more people to take up blogging, given it takes care of what is considered by some to be the more technical parts of the process.

Editing the appearance of a theme, for example, which some people probably find daunting. The assistant won’t quite put WordPress.com blogs on an equal footing with social media platforms, in terms of ease of use, but it might be seen as step in the right direction.

So long as the AI assistant limits its activities to design and maintenance functions, and does not expand into composing posts, all should be well…

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