The Rise and Fall of Blogging: From BBS to WordPress and Beyond

Chaos Lever Podcast

In this episode of Chaos Lever, we take a trip down memory lane to explore the history of blogging—starting with the humble beginnings of bulletin board systems (BBS) and online forums, and moving through the rise of blogs in the early 2000s. We’ll reminisce about Justin Hall’s early “personal homepage,” the birth of the term “weblog,” and how platforms like WordPress revolutionized online content creation.

From the golden days of Tumblr to the shift towards social media giants like Twitter and Facebook, we dive into how blogging has evolved and what it means for online self-expression today. Plus, we’ll touch on the current kerfuffle between WordPress and WP Engine—and why open-source projects like WordPress still matter.

Stay tuned for a discussion filled with nostalgia, tech trivia, and more!

Links:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Memory
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
- https://links.net/vita/web/start/original.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogosphere
- https://firstsiteguide.com/robot-wisdom-and-jorn-barger/
- https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Extremely-Online/Taylor-Lorenz/9781982146863
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter