Return of the wring
Is the webring back? probably not. a minor comeback ... Perhaps. in a small circle of makers and breakers. If your attention has been captured by the migration of content, then you have probably come across this the logo it is a webring run via a github repository, xxiivv.com and it is worth having a look at, not because it is ground breaking but because it foreshadow agressive federalization. There is a growing disdain for large corporate control systems.
Before Google.
There was a time before Google. It's difficult to remember, but there was. The ear of the web portals, the war of the seach machines. Who is still around in the aftermath? Well only Yahoo, really the others exist by guilt. I watched halt and catch fire recently, a TV series about the 80s, during the early days of tech. It was very honest about those years albit romantically ficional. There where no hot shot gorgous girls ripping up the scene back then. I know because that scene was my scene, would have noticed a girl. Hormones take no prisioners. The only girls around where bad bitmaps. However the show reminded me of the initial rawness of internet, and to be honest it made me feel a little sentimental. In it's crude federated state the internet was unsophisticated and unpretentious. E-commerce wasn't a thing and it was an ugly place of creativity. Things have certainly changed.
The logo looks strangely familir, don't you think?
It resembles chromes apature thing, also its not far from the triad logo, or three sixes overlapped and rotated. Yeah, i sort of like the subliminal anarchic suggestion of that last one. It does carry an air of mystery, in an archetypical way. Actually it looks like a traffic circle, seen on a road sign. Yup, it's a traffic flow icon. I like it.
These are some of my favorite neighbours:
What i have noticed since investigating into the webring concept is that the internet once again has the feel of uncharted water. It is so dumb to say that, but i have been visiting some of the random links that appear (above) while i was writing the JavaScript utility that injects them on the page. On visiting the sites, i found myself in and unexpected state of awe. The people are making stuff they care about, and putting out there, and it is not stuff that social megaliths care about, no not at all, these are labours of love, these are instead serotonin spikes caused from the effort you make when panning for gold. I dare you dear reader, try it, you will see discovering an authentic website makes you feel good. It makes you feel that you are connected to a human.