Blogrolls
by Venkatesh Rao · quoted from v1
Why are so many people's blogrolls empty??
Seems blygger.com is the only reliable way to find blygs right now.
Working on discovery via mentions, which can become suggested subs.
My bet? We’re all returning to open web blogging. No one is really that invested in that many blogs yet. We’ve all been relegated to platforms for years.*
Back in the old days of blogging I remember fun challenges were a way bloggers kind of got to know each other, in the blogging sense.
For example, I was a comic book person, and I remember something that really took off in comic book land was this “Draw Batgirl challenge.” It started on Livejournal but ended up spreading everywhere. More than 1,000 artists draw a version of Batgirl. It was really fun!
Maybe VGR, as the instigator and ringleader of the nascent Blygger movement, should start throwing out some challenges? That can all help us get to know each other’s vibe?
Here’s a question for folks:
What’s an old school blog you miss?
- Reminiscing about Batgirl has me thinking about comic books. I miss Covered. It wrapped in 2012. Artists would send in their own renditions of classic comic book covers. Some of them would faithfully recreate it and some would veer wildly away from it. It got so popular that someone else started a blog for good covers that had been rejected by Covered!
Which also makes me think of a corollary question: What’s a blog that has held on that you still like?
Staying on theme, I naturally have to give that one to
The Beat. Heidi MacDonald has kept going lo’ these many years. It’s amazing. A true stalwart both of comics and old school blogging.
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* Also, for me personally, I have not had ChatGPT build a blogroll function into my blogging client yet. 🙃 Gotta decide how to render that on the site, too. This thing is dead simple.
—Brady Dale
September 30, 2026
Any insufficient technology is indistinguishable from bureaucracy.