Web links

When I want to feel optimistic about technology, I turn to people who help shape the web. (Woo, “web”!) Often these folks have thoughts on blogging, on web publishing, and so forth. They live a philosophy that I can agree with—one of putting your human self forward, sharing kindly, and acting thoughtfully about the future.

So, here’s a list of links that speak to these themes, from some of my favourite writers on the web:

• The tools we use shape our work, today and into the future. As Mandy Brown points out, tools can also be a statement of values, about what you want to see in technology and what you’d rather avoid. (Tools and platforms can also serve to bring us closer—or push us further—to other people, affecting our illusion of independence, as Frank Chimero describes.)
• The web has lost a few of its early voices, but their contributions live on. Ethan Marcotte’s tribute to Dean Allen speaks to the beauty of personal writing, while acknowledging problems with the “old web”. (On a different tack, Ethan’s recent talk “The World-Wide Work” is worth a read/listen/watch.)
• We litter content across the web, in the hands of who knows how many service providers. Or, as Sameer Vasta points out, we can reclaim control of our content, keeping it in our hands while still sharing it broadly. (Jeremy Keith, among many others, has also written about this.)
• Chronological order dominates the web—but maybe that’s not so great. Mita Williams (in linking to Amy Hoy) relates personal sites to a librarian’s job of organizing a collection, pushing us to wonder whether we’ve gone from less content, better cared for, to more content, less cared for.

That’s all from me this week. Things are a bit zany, hence my “gems from the archive” format. We’ll be back to thinky thoughts in a few weeks :)

All the best for the week ahead!

Lucas