The highs and lows of publishing contributor dependent websites

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The highs and lows of publishing contributor dependent websites

21 January 2026

Manuel Moreale writing about People and Blogs, where he features regular interviews with bloggers:

It sucks because, since day one, I tried to find a good balance between keeping the series running smoothly and not letting guests wait for months and months to get their interview published. But I’m at the point where I can no longer do that. More than a few times, I found myself with the queue completely empty while waiting for dozens of people to get back to me. Every time someone came through in the end, and the series kept marching on week after week, but let me tell you: it’s not fun.

For a few years, between 2005 and 2007, I published a website about the creative and artistic work and projects of Australians, called OnVoiceOver (Internet Archive link). The name was a geeky word play on OnMouseOver, an old JavaScript event handler.

But OnVoiceOver, or OVO as I’d call it, was not an interview series like People and Blogs. Interviews with well known web people were already common circa 2005, and I wanted to try a different approach. So instead of posting interviews with people, I wrote an article about their work.

OVO also sported an ISSN, or International Standard Serial Number, on account of its (intended) periodic publication schedule. I tried in vain to get an ISSN for disassociated, but was told blogs were not considered to be periodic publications. Oh, really?

OVO was (mostly) fun while it lasted. Some of the people I featured included Cameron Adams, who later co-found Canva, artist and writer Lang Leav, and artist Brad Eastman.

Long story short: I’d contact someone I wanted to profile (though sometimes people messaged me). After they agreed, I’d send them some questions, and use the answers, once received, to write the article. Once three articles were finished, I would then publish a new edition.

Like People and Blogs, OVO, despite the sole Australian focus, should have had sufficient fodder, content wise, to remain publishing indefinitely. After all, new and exciting ideas were coming along constantly. It’s not like there was nothing else to write about, after I posted the twenty-seventh, and final, article in August 2007.

But I was also in the situation where I was waiting on people, who had agreed to participate, some of whom I knew personally, to get back to me with their answers. On the other side of that, there were those who had returned answers, wondering when their feature would be posted.

I’d sometimes desperately trawl through news and forum posts of the likes of (erstwhile) Australian design portals, Australian Infront and Design is Kinky, to see if there was an idea I was able to quickly work with, so the next edition could go out. Perhaps my decision to post articles in groups of three was not so clever after all, and I should have gone with a single article format.

But I doubt that would have made much difference. I know everyone who participated was busy. They had jobs and careers to focus on. They had families to spend time with. When I’d follow up, I’d often receive messages to the effect of “oh yes, I keep saying to myself I must answer these questions as soon as possible”.

OVO quite likely had a less pronounced profile than People and Blogs, but it surprises me would-be participants are dragging their heels. A People and Blogs profile must be accompanied by a pleasing spike in traffic, and likely some new readers in the process.

In the end though, it wasn’t a few people not returning their answers to me that spelt the end of OVO. Migrating disassociated to WordPress, in mid 2007 was what did it. Somehow interest in the WordPress-ed version of disassociated skyrocketed, almost overnight, and visits increased ten-fold within a few months. This was, of course, the so-called golden-age of blogging.

My energy and focus was firmly there by that point. Eventually enough people returned answers allowing me to publish a final edition of OVO in August 2007, six months after the previous one. About two years later, OVO officially went into hiatus. The website remained online for quite a while, and in 2019 I finally relinquished OVO’s domain name.

Since my days of publishing OVO — and it did occur to me this was happening twenty years ago — I’m far more cautious about publishing what I call contributor dependent content. I try to do as much as possible here by myself, even though some of us like to think this is a collaborative medium.

I also seldom involve myself in other people’s projects, aware that my taking months to make a contribution, after saying I’d do so “in a few days”, is not helping matters.

But for the frustrations that come with operating People and Blogs, I remain hopeful the interviews will continue to be published for some long time to come yet.

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blogs, self publishing, trends

The more personal websites there are, the better the web will be

6 January 2026

A website to destroy all websites, by Henry Desroches.

Hand-coded, syndicated, and above all personal websites are exemplary: They let users of the internet to be autonomous, experiment, have ownership, learn, share, find god, find love, find purpose. Bespoke, endlessly tweaked, eternally redesigned, built-in-public, surprising UI and delightful UX. The personal website is a staunch undying answer to everything the corporate and industrial web has taken from us.

The website (to destroy all websites) in question is the personal website, because through personal websites, we build the web we want to have. If you only read one article about the present state of the web, make it this one.

Write more, about anything, on a personal website, not social media

2 January 2026

Fernando Borretti:

I will often find a blog post on Hacker News that really resonates. And when I go to check the rest of the site there’s three other posts. And I think: I wish you’d write more! When I find someone whose writing I really connect with, I like to read everything they have written, or at least a tractable subset of their most interesting posts.

I’m the same.

There are probably quite a few people writing, or posting publicly, but much of that content ends up on social media, rather than a personal website or blog. Let’s do more to encourage independent online publishing on personal websites and blogs.

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blogs, self publishing, social media

Are you a ‘small i’ indie web, or ‘capital I’ IndieWeb, publisher?

30 December 2025

Chris Shaw, writing at uncountable thoughts:

The IndieWeb is, as far as I can tell, a community of people who advocate certain digital principles and support each other in working towards those. The most famous principle is Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. There are a variety of initiatives such as the monthly blog carnival (which I have hosted in the past) and online/in-person meetups.

The indie web, on the other hand, is a (very) much larger universe of websites run by individuals who wish to express their independent creativity.

You can, as I am, be an indie web publisher, without being an IndieWeb publisher.

Many personal websites and blogs pre-date the IndieWeb movement, sometimes by well over a decade, but align with some IndieWeb principles. I am definitely in that category, and henceforth shall refer to myself as a ‘small i’ indie web publisher.

What happened to Problogger and Darren Rowse?

8 December 2025

A reader contacted me a few days after I mentioned blogging resource Problogger, and founder Darren Rowse, in a recent post. They were wondering if I knew anything about what’s happened at the site, or to Rowse himself, as no new content seems to have been posted since June 2024.

For those coming in late, Problogger was, or still is, one of the preeminent blogging resource sites, helping people who want to make money from writing online. The publication was launched by Melbourne based Australian blogger Rowse in 2004.

Despite being dated June 2024 though, some of the recent Problogger posts were actually much older. A few I looked at had — judging by the age of the comments — been written in 2008, and were re-posts. Evergreen content. But there was nothing — as far as I could see — indicating the site was taking either a temporary break, or ceasing operation all together.

It seems odd that a website with the profile of Problogger would suddenly fall silent, for no apparent reason. Of course long running single author blogs take breaks now and again, whether for personal or family reasons, or because the writer simply wants some time out.

Publishing content regularly is no small ask, as anyone who does so will tell you.

A look at the Problogger open-to-all Facebook page likewise revealed nothing. The last entry there, as of the time I type, is dated December 2024. The Twitter/X page however is a little more active, the last post I saw there (login may be required to view) was dated 18 November 2025.

But a Twitter/X post made on 15 April 2024 seems to answer the question of what’s become of both Problogger and Rowse: he’s now a church pastor, or at least is part time. As Rowse points out though, this is not exactly a new role, and was something he was doing prior to launching Problogger over twenty years ago. This might be him going back to his roots, perhaps.

I’m not sure what this means for the future of the Problogger website, given Rowse doesn’t appear to have said anything one way or the other as yet. There are still plenty of blogging related posts on his Twitter/X page, which might suggest Problogger will be revived sometime in the future. But until something official is said, Problogger readers will have to wait and see what happens.

On the plus side, even though posting seems to have paused, the website remains online, and content is still there to access. While it’s not quite my thing, it would still be unfortunate if twenty-plus years of information were to be taken offline.

As an aside, I also found out Rowse has been exploring how AI can be of use to religious leaders (Threads post). This might be of interest to people curious as to how religion and AI can intersect.

Neocities, Nekoweb, bringing back the weird personal websites

4 December 2025

Neocities, kind of born out of the ashes of once popular personal website hosting service Geocities, and Nekoweb, are on a mission to restore weird personal websites.

With over one-point-three-million sites on their servers, Neocities, which was established in 2013, has made a substantial contribution. Nekoweb was founded last year, but has a growing membership.

Their goals are similar however, says Stevie Bonifield, writing for The Verge:

Across both, you’ll see a strange mix of old and new, like anti-AI webrings, a personal website in the style of the ’90s but themed around a Hobonichi Techo planner, or one website that’s an interactive re-creation of Windows 98. Even the demographics of the indie web are evidence of this — the community seems to skew young, largely under 30, so many of the people making these pages probably missed out on the original GeoCities (myself included).

Blogosphere sightings: handwritten content, ceaseless curiosity, and a niche blog

29 November 2025

I started writing about newer blogs and personal websites earlier this year, and then somehow stopped. A busy year at work has been getting in the way of things as ever. Let’s try and get this going again, since there can’t be enough sharing of links within the blogosphere.

Having said my focus was to feature newer websites, I’m opening with one that’s been online since 2015. Ratika Deshpande’s website, Chavanni Class, is inspired by her great grandfather, whom she never met. He died quite sometime before her birth, but he was a teacher whose work, and life, was driven by a seemingly ceaseless curiosity.

Jan Sandstrom has been writing on his “blog style notebook” about life since leaving his job in 2024, to spend more time composing music, writing, creating comics, and painting. Some content is handwritten on paper but is posted with text captions, while posts and newsletters are only published from time to time, on this “quite slow blog”. And why not, what’s the rush anyway?

I don’t know much about the writer behind Iterative Wonders, but the about page tells us they’re “a tech and AI enthusiast, [who’s] brain often feels like a browser with way too many fascinating tabs open.” I’m right there with all the open browser tabs. Only a few posts have been published so far, but there’s still plenty to digest.

And to close, here’s a newer niche style blog. Sam Clemente’s publication, The Digital Renaissance, which explores “the new intersection between technology and liberal arts”, has been online for about a year. Subjects including technology, the social web, and business, are covered. Yes, there are older blogs focused on these topics, but it’s good to see newer outlets coming through.

Feeds and algorithms have freed us from personal websites

26 November 2025

For another point of view, sorry POV, which I suggest you should read in full, Germany based linguist and writer, Burk:

People stopped typing URLs. Entirely. No one goes to “juliawrites.com” anymore. They go to TikTok. Or Substack. Or Medium. Or Twitter. Or anything that has a feed and an algorithm.

Well most people stopped, obviously. But I still sometimes type “juliawrites.com”. And “TikTok.com/@juliawrites”. Rather than using the TikTok app (yet to install it), so I can see the page of the person I want to, instead of the algorithm serving up what it decides to.

Ditto “Instagram.com”, where the website trumps the app when it comes to user experience any day. I see only what I want to see. And then leave. I seldom go to Substack. I do look in on Twitter sometimes, and Medium, where I have an (unused) account, and read Burk’s article.

I don’t hear too many people saying they like algorithms, at least in a web content context.

But this is the web, and if you want to write something like that on your website, your Substack and/or Medium page, or that algorithm infested swamp that is the socials, you’re free to do so.

As for “forcing” readers to learn the “design quirks” of your personal website, you could always encourage them to subscribe to the RSS feed instead (even if it’s an algorithm-free feed).

Via Michael Gale, whose personal website is here.

Esoteric, speciality, niche blogs closing down, not being replaced

22 November 2025

John Gruber, writing at Daring Fireball:

Uni Watch, to me, epitomized a certain mindset from the early web. To wit, that there ought to be a blog (or two or three) dedicated to every esoteric interest under the sun. You want to obsess about sports team uniform designs? Uni Watch was there. For a good long stretch, there seemingly was a blog (or two or three) dedicated to just about everything. That’s starting to wane. New sites aren’t rising to take the place of retiring ones.

Uni Watch, which has been online in one form or another since 1999, announced its closure a few weeks ago. At first it seemed the entire website, including archived content, was to be removed within days, but in a later post, founder Paul Lukas said the site’s future remained unclear. There’s a suggestion Uni Watch might continue publishing, though that is still far from certain.

The survival of niche interest websites and blogs, such as Uni Watch, are, in my opinion, vital for the future of the web, as I wrote the other day.

It is of course unreasonable to think every owner operated website, or those with a small team of writers, that began publishing decades ago, will keep going forever. What’s unfortunate is the format, niche/speciality blogging, seems to increasingly be regarded as passé.

Niche blogs are just too weird, their presence cannot be tolerated

22 November 2025

Megan Greenwell writing for Talking Points Memo, AKA TPM:

When Vice News stopped publishing in February 2024 — nearly eight years after Gawker’s demise, five after OG Deadspin’s — it marked the final nail in the coffin of the era in which any media outlet was thought of as cool. On one level, that’s for the best; I can think of exactly one Deadspin employee in the site’s history who could accurately be categorized that way. But it also makes clear just how much private equity has taken from us: not just local newspapers providing invaluable information about communities, but also blogs willing to get weird, to try things no one else would.

Ah yes, make one publication profitable by shutting down competing outlets. But this is nothing new.

There were a number of blogs I followed back in the day, fifteen to twenty years ago, pretty much on account of their owners’ — how do I say? — colourful personalities. Many of them ended up being sold, and not long afterwards, ceasing publication.

Surely buyers cannot have gone into the transaction with their eyes closed.

The success of these blogs was, to a large degree, because of their quirkiness. Was the buyer certain they could replicate this ? It made a few people wonder. Back then of course a few blogs going offline was not a problem, plenty more were always coming along. Not so much today though.

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