Richard MacManus
Tech journalist covering the modern web · Internet historian @ cybercultural.com · Founded ReadWriteWeb (2003-2012) · 🥝 in 🇬🇧
Other Bluesky a/cs:
@cybercultural.com — internet history
@classicweb.site — old web screenshots
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- For @drupalassociation.bsky.social's 25th anniversary, I spoke with founder Dries Buytaert. His advice for building a long-term open source community: “Don’t expect overnight success. I think anything successful in life usually takes 10 years.” thenewstack.io/drupal-turns... #OpenSource
- Continuing Cybercultural's history of web design, we're still in 1993 but now we come to perhaps the world's first web designer: Jennifer Niederst Robbins. She designed O'Reilly's Global Network Navigator (GNN). cybercultural.com/p/1993-globa... cc @jenville.bsky.social @rachelandrew.bsky.social
- The news of Cloudflare acquiring the company behind Astro is just the latest in a string of similar frontend framework deals. Some of these arrangements go well, some...not so much (RIP Gatsby). thenewstack.io/why-platform...
- Reposted by Richard MacManus🧵 Your micro-memoir doesn't need to be about life-changing moments. It can be deeply nerdy about whatever you actually care about. Here's what a tech history newsletter taught me about documenting the small, obsessive details that only you would think to preserve:
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- In 1993, web design didn't really exist — you couldn't even change the background color of your web page from grey. But Mosaic launched the first era of visual web design and soon after an MTV VJ (@curry.com) improbably created one of the first commercial websites. cybercultural.com/p/1993-mtv-i...
- Had a day off today and went to Hay-on-Wye (the UK’s book town) with my daughter. I managed to find a 2006 web design book, packed with screenshots. Anyone else a fan of the “Web Design Index by Content” books? #WebDesignHistory
- Everyone here loves a CSS-in-JS system, right? I took a look at Meta's StyleX & how it compares to the more commonly used Tailwind. While "just use CSS dammit" is the normal response to such tools, StyleX has a very specific (& rare) use case: highly scaled apps. thenewstack.io/stylex-vs-ta... #CSS
- Reposted by Richard MacManusOh my goodness! Look at that, 20 years. One of my favourite designs, gosh
- Reposted by Richard MacManusbig q for Leaflet + standard.site: how can we rethink 'subscribing' for the social web? different from subbing via RSS feed or email newsletter! & this succeeds to the extent it's a great social experience, where ppl can interact w/ an ecosystem of many readers & writers, w/ lots of entry points…
- Reposted by Richard MacManusA history of web design, from the grey web pages of 1993 to the colorful, mobile-centric web designs of 2012. A celebration of the peak years of personal websites and blogs. By Richard MacManus. cybercultural.com/p/history-of...
- Today I'm launching season 5 of Cybercultural: the history of web design from 1993 till 2012. It will be a celebration of the peak years of personal websites and blogs! I invite you to subscribe now for weekly updates via email or RSS. cybercultural.com/p/history-of... #WebDesignHistory
- One of my current areas of interest is Web AI, where apps use AI models on-device via the browser. But this is also possible using native mobile apps, as a UK company called DataSapien is doing with its new SDK. I spoke to its founder and CEO StJohn “Singe” Deakins. thenewstack.io/datasapiens-...
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- To commemorate the 79th anniversary of David Bowie's birth & nearly the 10th anniversary of his passing, I've written a mini-history of Bowie's website from 2004 to 2016 — including why he shunned social media ("Dropped my cell phone down below"). cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-2... #BowieForever 👨🎤
- The final post of Cybercultural season 4 -> Online music & blogging were two key trends in the first decade of digital culture. In 2003, they combine in the form of MP3 blogs. Together with Pitchfork, they revolutionize music journalism. cybercultural.com/p/mp3-blogs-... #InternetHistory #MP3Blogs
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- Remember "social software"? We heard this term a lot during 2003. While it would take another year for Silicon Valley to start inflating another bubble — this one would be named "Web 2.0" — there was a renewed sense of optimism in '03. cybercultural.com/p/internet-2... #InternetHistory
- My wrapup of AI development in 2025 for @thenewstack.io. thenewstack.io/ai-engineeri...
- My latest for @thenewstack.io is a look at two new "agentic user interface" projects, one from Google (A2UI) and one being driven by OpenAI and Anthropic (MCP Apps). thenewstack.io/agent-ui-sta...
- Reposted by Richard MacManusgood post! touches on a lot of interesting things in internet publishing today: website as "online magazine" vs blog & publishing in *seasons*, experiments with "replanting" older articles, the emergent *open social* movement & challenges of recapturing the energy of the blogosphere…
- How my independent website, Cybercultural, has fared during 2025 — a year when AI summaries whittled away search referral traffic and social media continued its war against hyperlinks. Also, I reflect on the state of the open web from a publishing pov. cybercultural.com/p/indie-web-... #IndieWeb
- How my independent website, Cybercultural, has fared during 2025 — a year when AI summaries whittled away search referral traffic and social media continued its war against hyperlinks. Also, I reflect on the state of the open web from a publishing pov. cybercultural.com/p/indie-web-... #IndieWeb
- Reposted by Richard MacManusWhat are your biggest complaints about using the web right now?
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- In the final part of my 5-part series on the history of blogging and RSS, we come to 2003: when RSS Readers like NetNewsWire and Bloglines burst onto the scene, Google buys Blogger, WordPress debuts, and 16-year old Aaron Swartz live-blogs a Dave Winer keynote. cybercultural.com/p/blogospher...
- It's year-end wrapup time and here are my top 5 web development trends of 2025. They show a divide between AI coding tools that favor React and the growing power of native web features. thenewstack.io/web-developm...
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- This week I look back at the peak of Flash web design in 2003. In particular, the launch of BowieNet version 3 — designed completely in Flash (which made it a huge challenge to get screenshots from Wayback Machine!). h/t @webdesignmuseum.org for feature image & vid. cybercultural.com/p/bowienet-v...
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- When social networks went mainstream in 2003, with Friendster and then its copycat MySpace, they were initially positioned as dating apps (later that year, Mark Zuckerberg would use the "hot or not" format in Facemash...but that's another, creepier, story!). cybercultural.com/p/myspace-20...
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- Let's take a trip back to 2002, when broadband kicked into gear and we got interactive websites like MTV and colorful "tableless CSS" designs like Wired. 2002 was also when "the blogosphere" was defined. Meanwhile, utter chaos ruled in the P2P music sharing scene. cybercultural.com/p/internet-2...
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- I talk to the CEO of MozillaAI about Mozilla's AI strategy and why the web doesn't seem to be that important in its new mission. thenewstack.io/how-mozillas...
- In the latest post in my history of blogging and RSS series, I look at the emergence of the blogosphere in 2002 — a thriving ecosystem of colourful personal sites that interconnected to each other via RSS, trackback and blogrolls. cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-...
- Google’s recent Web AI Summit revealed more about how the company is positioning Chrome as a foundation for AI apps & agents. Also, we heard that Google is “super committed to continuing to invest in an open, interoperable Web,” says Parisa Tabriz, Google Chrome VP/GM. thenewstack.io/googles-web-...
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- This week on Cybercultural, more early-2000s Apple 🍎, including why Steve Jobs didn't want online music to go the streaming route (which of course it eventually did). cybercultural.com/p/ipod-2002/ #InternetHistory
- Reposted by Richard MacManus✨ Author Spotlight: @ricmac.cybercultural.com ✨ His journey began with '90s code, leading to the legendary ReadWriteWeb. Now, he connects that history to the present, focusing on fediverse and open-source AI. His mission is simple: ensure you gain the insights to stay one step ahead.
- I had a great chat with Google's Web AI lead, Jason Mayes, who argues that the web is the future of AI — not the cloud. He cites in-browser inference and LiteRT.js as key developments. thenewstack.io/how-google-i...
- What we now know as the “social web” — or Web 2.0 — didn’t arrive until 2004. But the first inklings of it were emerging a couple of years before. As usual, music was the harbinger. In this week's Cybercultural, I look at the beginnings of Lastfm and Audioscrobbler. cybercultural.com/p/lastfm-aud...
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- When everyone's a developer — including all the vibe coders with their magic lamps — how do we get the AI genies to use web platform features instead of React code? I have a few suggestions in this week's WTN. webtechnology.news/when-everyon... Follow: @feed.webtechnology.news.ap.brid.gy
- New from me on @thenewstack.io: Microsoft Research has just launched an open source simulation environment for AI agents, called Magentic Marketplace. In advance of the release, I spoke to Ece Kamar, Managing Director of the AI Frontiers Lab. thenewstack.io/microsoft-la...
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- 2001 was a tough year, but there were bright spots in internet innovation: Wikipedia launched in January 2001, Wayback Machine in October, and iTunes and iPod launched. I hope you enjoy the latest yearly wrapup on Cybercultural, my internet history website: cybercultural.com/p/internet-2...
- In this week's issue of Web Technology News (WTN), my weekly newsletter, I comment on Vercel's recent experiments running a full Next.js app inside ChatGPT. Plus the latest Web Platform & Open Social Web news. webtechnology.news/vercel-bring... Follow: @feed.webtechnology.news.ap.brid.gy
- Continuing my history of blogging and RSS series, I look at 2001: the year of warblogs, Movable Type and Blogdex. There are lots of great 2001 screenshots in this post, so I hope you enjoy it. cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-... #InternetHistory #Blogging
- Lovely site from 2006 from @cwodtke.bsky.social
- Reposted by Richard MacManus25 years ago today, I finished v1.0 of Greymatter — the software that changed my life in some... mixed ways, changed the web a lil bit, & "came back" to save my home & life in 2022. (I'll share links about that below.) Happy birthday, you silly, scary, life-exploding, bittersweet child o' mine.
- In this week's issue of Web Technology News (WTN), I list my two main takeaways from the big launch of OpenAI's Atlas browser. Plus other reactions from around the web. webtechnology.news/a-new-web-br... Subscribe via email or RSS, or here on Bluesky: @feed.webtechnology.news.ap.brid.gy
- A new project out of MIT is building open, decentralized infrastructure for AI agents as an alternative to proprietary platforms. As I note in the post, shades of the open social web. thenewstack.io/how-mits-pro...
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- Today, October 21, 2025, there is a rally in San Francisco in support of @archive.org. To show my appreciation for their most famous creation, the Wayback Machine, this week's Cybercultural post takes you back 24 years to its launch. Long live the Internet Archive! cybercultural.com/p/wayback-ma...
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- In the latest issue of Web Technology News (WTN), I look at a trend I'm monitoring very closely: after a decade of smartphone apps dominance, the web is becoming the default interface layer again. Of course, this time it's for AI. Also: open web news incl Bluesky. webtechnology.news/the-web-is-b...
- Do I need another blog? Not really, but let's kick the tyres of Leaflet.
- I just subscribed to a bunch of leaflets; the process is a little confusing at first (what am I logging into, exactly?!), but once you realize you essentially get a custom Bluesky feed of the sites you subscribe to — the Leaflet Reader — it makes sense! Great stuff, will continue adding sites.
- Nice curated thread of some great recent posts from leaflet.pub/discover — and a bsky feed to browse em!
- THIS: “I still look for people with early blogger energy, though — people willing to make an effort to understand the world and engage in a way that isn’t a performance, or trolling, or outright grifting. Enough of them, collectively, can be agents of change.”
- Talking Points Memo is turning 25 and I wrote a little encomium to early blogging, which I sometimes miss: talkingpointsmemo.com/tpm-25/what-...
- My latest post for @thenewstack.io is about Vite+, a new frontend toolkit designed for enterprises. It brings Vite & Vue creator Evan You's company, VoidZero, closer to the space Vercel occupies — except there's no cloud lock-in with Vite+. thenewstack.io/vite-aims-to...
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- This week on Cybercultural, I look back on Steve Jobs' January 2001 keynote at Macworld SF, when he announced iTunes and Apple's new "digital hub" concept. It set the company up for a renaissance in the 21st century, when *everything* became digital. cybercultural.com/p/itunes-lau... #AppleHistory
- The latest issue of Web Technology News (WTN) is out now. This week I focus on the web-based ChatGPT Apps platform, but there's also #FediForum action, other open social web news, and web platform opportunities. webtechnology.news/openai-turns... Follow @feed.webtechnology.news.ap.brid.gy
- My report from FediForum. The products I mentioned are all fediverse ones, but I see the same promise in the AT Protocol apps I’ve seen. It’s all “open social web” and the key is to enbrace developers on both platforms. thenewstack.io/everything-b...
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- My take on OpenAI's new Apps SDK, an app platform reminiscent of the big iOS & Android announcements of 2008 (but now it's web apps!). thenewstack.io/openai-launc...
