Like the good old days of the web, this site now has a guestbook. As you know, I love emails, I love getting in touch with people like you, who surf the independent web and spend time reading weird blog posts. Getting email is super fun.
But you know what else is fun? Guestbooks. It’s so fun to leave a mark on another person’s website, a subtle reminder that you were there, at some point.
Oh, by the way, I'm not the only person with a guestbook here on the interwebs. If you have one let me know and I'll both sign it and add it to the list.
I love this site. You have encouraged me to think more about the web, how it should work, and whether I should have another go at updating my own site. Thank you.
I love reading People and Blogs! It's gotten to the point where I wait for Friday to roll around with eager anticipation. Thank you for providing such a great opportunity for discovery on the indie web!
Appreciate your takes coming through my RSS feed ✌
Jacob Varney
Love your website and mindset to approach things.
You are the inspiration that I started building my own blog and will keep doing it and posting stuff -hopefully- until I die. Appreciate everything you do for the personal web.
I've always loved the idea of a guestbook, and it reminds me when I used to surf the web as I was like 12 or so. Thanks for bringing back such lovely memories.
And thanks for generally being an inspiration just by being your unique self. 🍀️
I don’t have the slightest idea how you do it, but this website always manages, at least in me, to transmit something, even just by its design... feelings maybe... I don’t know, it feels human. Thank you so much for being a guiding light for so many of us. Hats off.
I miss the old web. I miss the sense of discovery more than anything. We are hyper-connected now, and we don’t discover content anymore. Instead, it is shoved into our faces. But finding sites with little details like these makes me feel like we haven't strayed too far. They surprise and delight. Maybe there is hope for us, yet.
Found your blog a year ago, when took interest in indie web, and it quickly became my favourite one to read. Thank you, Manu. Greetings from Belarus! c:
Manu,
Thank you for lovingly creating this site and sharing your thoughts with the world. It is always a pleasure to see a new entry in my RSS Reader.
Adam
Manu's website is my favourite place on the web. Since I discovered it around 3 years ago I was shock on how many aspects we agreed on. It made me feel less alone in my thinking against corporate-web and anti-consumerism.
It became a source of inspiration: thanks to you, Manu, I'm slowly walking my way to join this lovely personal-websites family.
Happy to finally have a word for what I've been enjoying so much online - 'asynchronicity.' Thank you. I am beginning to think about hyperlinks as the unit of the web.
Your website is always such a charming place to visit, Manu! Thanks for your interesting posts, the P&B series, and for doing so much to make the web better. Keep it going.
Thank you for this thoughtfully crafted place on the web. I have enjoyed your writing and thinking style for years. Glad to see that From the Summit has returned!
A guestbook is such a lovely thing to have added to your site. I'm so thankful for the thoughts and notes you put out into the world. Keep doing what you do Manu.
I love your site. Sadly, I have been reading it only starting last year and I wish I've known about its existence way before. Continue your great work. Love it!
Thanks for doing the P&B interviews! I've found new perspectives and blogs that I don't think I would've stumbled on otherwise, and I really appreciate that
Love your blog, topics and the blog series! Thank you for doing this.
For me, the first memories and usage of the World Wide Web were.. blogs, blogs, blogs. And I started one back in the early 2000s, and restarted (the current) one a few years ago.
Manu, you helped warm me back to the independent web; of quietly tending to one’s own patch. I have your site in my bookmarks bar and I check in at least thrice a week. Thank you for being a beacon amidst the noise; a haven amidst the cacophony.
Thank you for inspiring me to keep reading, and keep writing, even if it is just for future me.
Neil
Hey Manuel, I've enjoyed following your site and projects for the past year or so since I discovered it! I appreciate what you do with P&B et al to promote the small, but human, web. Keep it on!
i'm really happy i found this blog and i keep finding happiness in people's little spaces on the corners of the internet. it makes me feel like the internet is still alive, well, and criative. and that we get to make new friends!
thanks for writing your thoughts out loud!
Splashes of yellow and sculpted serifs are all I can see; they're centred in my vision. Beyond them exists nothing but the emptiness of a clear palette. It is clean and inspires introspection. I would be alone if not in the presence of other travellers of the World Wide Web leaving their own marks as they surf.
I don't remember how I got here, but I will remember leaving this message among mates.
Hello! Long time reader, first time guestbook signer. Here to see the new CSS and typography adjustments after reading the post “New site, kinda” on my RSS feed. Looking good! I love to inspect how other people put their websites together. Have a lovely day! ⚘
I forgot if I signed here before, so I figured I'd jump on just in case I didn't. I've been enjoying your posts on my RSS for a few months now and glad I found you, though I do not exactly remember how that happened. Just one of the cool things about blogging I suppose, you can meet people just based on something they wrote. I don't have anything in particular to say. Just hi! And thank you for blogging.
hiiiiiii cute lil people here:3
it's my first time doing this, as i was born late to see the light of guestbook/s xd
i sometimes realy wonder how could we preserve such content, blogs, etc like it's on this site from getting scraped(by AI:( ), it's realy awesome to read little texts, and it's like a suprise of the day :)
i hope someday we figure something out to prevent it from happening
and also for you Manu: please keep up this site, you always make my day better, more intersting, and also learned about stuff i never thought i would ever read before,
i wonder is there some way to support you? thanks cutie <3
Thanks for your site! I always love reading through your posts and appreciate how you promote and encourage people to create personal websites. I'm also digging the redesign 👍
Love the way you champion personal indie blogging. The Guestbook is a neat idea that yet again sprinkles more delight to the uniqueness of personal blogs.
I came here from a random link on a website I found from a guestbook, which I found from nownownow.com. Tracking this journey is getting confusing. My own site is pretty unique since it's sort of a cross between a video game and an old internet website, but it currently lacks a blog, unfortunately...
I'll take a look at your People & Blogs series since everyone seems to really like it :)
Hi, Manu. I just discovered your blog while reading another blog(brainbaking.com). I liked your articles and found your “People and Blogs” project very inspiring.
Keep being creative! 🤍
Khumar Musayeva
Discovered this blog a few months ago and read through all of it. Really love it, and feel like a more personal part of the internet. Bonus points for P&B: I discovered many new blogs I love.
Stumbled upon your blog a few years ago whilst looking at minimalist websites on the web.
Thank you for giving me tips about reorganising my website at the time and I still pop over here every so often to read your thought-provoking updates.
I missed the era of RSS, of guestbooks, of "early" internet. I'm only just now learning the joy of balancing speed with intention online, and blogs like this help immensely.
James
Manuel, your blog is a testament to the good of the internet! And the good of human interactions. Thank you for writing, for sharing, and for creating a more sane way for people to use technology
Ciao Manu, you’re an awesome person and I love to read your thoughts, I really appreciate you share your life and thank you for being a great inspiration (I started to build my blog BTW).
I stumbled (boy, is that word overused) across your site when searching the term 'quiet web' following the discovery of Quiet Marketing by Danielle Gardner (https://www.danigardner.com/quiet-marketing-book). I'm a web designer and this philosophy is very much in alignment with my thinking on life, the web, and where we're at with society and being human today. Then I found myself browsing some of your other words. What a curious big, little world we live in. Thanks for the words. They've helped me come up with something. More is brewing.
Hope Nothhelfer
I'm too young to have seen the golden days of the web, but i love spending time on this site. It's so much calmer. Thanks for all the effort!
Artuur Heidbuchel
Wonderful site. Always good to find someone who "gets it" regarding what the Web can be. Looking forward to future writings.
Thanks, love your simply formatted emails.
I feel like I'm drinking a clean glass of water when I read your non-advertisement, non-image, non-b.s. emails in square blocks of text with no indentation.
Thanks again
Tyler
Hii
David
found your blog in a book i borrowed from the library and combine that with my new-found interest in sites like neocities and indie web stuff... i made a site myself too :D
Good luck catching up with stuff! I know how it feels sometimes and I wish you the spirit and energy to grind through it.
tippi
I found your weird phone setup guide randomly on the internet when I was researching about minimalist phone setup and guess what, I am staying right here and reading about everything you posted and it's inspiring I say. love you Manu and keep up with the good work!
Hana Chan
Thank you - really appreciate all your work here and have learned a ton from the site. Beautifully designed space for people to connect!
Found your site through Riccardo Mori's blog post about it, put it in my RSS feed reader as soon as I saw it! I love the guestbook, its not a concept that I see any more and its a nice little touch of humanity that brings me much joy.
so i have been reading your blog for years now, probably 5 years and we have communicated to and fro on mails and sms. whenever i need a sense of direction, or calmness, i just hit your places and it feels home.
Hey Manu, I've been meaning to send you a message for a while now. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your writings, especially the ones about indie blogging. Please keep doing what you're doing—your work has inspired me to keep publishing too. Thank you so much!
hiya, fellow internet stranger here. just popping by to let you know that your blog, ethos and posts mean a whole lot to me. they are, in my eyes, super inspiring chunks of a consciousness that would have been drowned out in so many other corners of the net. so, thank you dearly for making them available and encouraging others to do the same ~
I love your blog a lot, Mr Manu. You're a massive inspiration to me, and I hope that you keep writing blog posts for the rest of your natural and hopefully unnatural life. The only other thing I have to say is that I wish you had a dark mode, as by staring at this flashbang I can see like 10 meters less, but I guess that's why I need to find an RSS reader that suits me.
I always read your posts via RSS so I thought it was about time to come back to your page and say hello. I did not have a blog in English in my last visit, so I will put the new link now. Have a nice day, Manu.
Stumbled upon this site today. What a great place to happen upon... and a guestbook. Wow. Love it.
I wanted to read more digital gardens and found your site after adding Maggie Appleton's on feedly and following a bunch of others. That list got too big to keep up with so we chose the best ones to keep up with on Slack. So glad that yours was one we decided to keep. We really appreciate the human topics and touch, and this wall is a massive testament to that.
Thank you, Manuel for tending such a wonderful, informative and beautiful website. It is one of my favourite personal sites and it's a delight to read every article when it pops in my feed reader. Keep up the great work!
Just stumbled on your site through another website. All I can say is I'm super inspired and I'm looking to speeding through all your posts (yes, all of them!). Hopefully this is the sign I needed to get back into blogging and writing in general. (>_<')
Ah the good old guestbook. I managed to find my old one using the wayback machine the other day. I will add guestbook to my site as well once I am done with the redesign.
I love your blog, the design is so clean and simple. I always enjoy reading your posts.
You are truly an inspiration. Your blog was one of the first I found when I discovered the IndieWeb last year and thanks to you I've found many other amazing people on the web. Without you the internet would be a much more barren place. Thank you so much and keep it up.
You are helping me rethink my presence online after years of mostly quick and ephemeral interactions in social media, so thanks a lot for your inspiration. And this guestbook idea is so much fun, I love to be a part of this. So Esteban from the Basque Country was here and enjoyed the site a lot. Will be coming back.
A brilliant website, Manu - clean design, minimalist with a dash of colour which I love! And the guestbook - such a throwback to the web of my youth. I’ve made one of my own inspired by yours (and others') guestbooks.
Thank you for making this site and all the best ✌️
Enjoy reading your takes. Love the P&B series.
Let’s go for 100 more!
Pete
I don't remember how I end here, but I'm glad I did and even saved in my blog bests (oh and even bookmarked). Your words gives me peace.
Thanks for all your texts!
I stumbled upon your website by chance and ended up spending a couple of hours reading through your articles. It’s really refreshing to see that quality websites and personal blogs like yours still exist. Ever since this whole AI mess started four years ago, I’ve come to appreciate blogs like yours more and more, and I believe others will start looking for the same. Keep up the great work!
I found your website via OwnYourWeb a few weeks ago. Since then I’ve been subscribed to your RSS. I’ve been enjoying your little snippets of writing and posts. Cool that you can only be reachable via email (and in a one-way sense, your guestbook).
Guestbooks reminds me of how prominent cgi scripts used to be to do all sorts of wacky stuff in the 90s/00s. Unfortunately with the rise of bots, it’s not always easy to get these sorts of things up (as a non-dev) without requiring yucky captcha or 3rd party comment services with ads/tracking!
I appreciate your site, so thanks for having one!
Of course you brought a guestbook online. Love it, Manu! Now let’s see how many other personal sites add a guestbook…
You make the web a better place. And bringing a guestbook back is a lovely nod to the past. Enjoying the subtle site design updates too. Keep writing, keep hiking, and keep fighting for the indie web.
Love your posts, Manuel! I remember in the pre-blogging era of the web, they would have been called “essays” or /opinions XD Gratitude right back at you too for keeping RSS alive!
Congrats on 100 P&B. I’ve enjoyed reading about all these cool folks and visiting their blogs. Then often second guessing my website design choices. Look forward to many more!
Kevin McCoy
Found via RSS.
Finally, we can quickly move past the last 17 years of the web and get back to it. Well done, Manu.
> Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.
I saw this on the RSS feed of this site. How fantastic! I'm gonna add this feature to my own site right away.
Manu, you’ve outdone yourself with this one, I love it. Nothing will trump my memories of the early web: happily surfing blogs in Netscape Navigator, reading email in Pine (later Eudora), and, of course, countless guestbooks. This harkens back to a much quieter digital time when discoverability was a joy, rather than having endless streams beamed into our eyeballs—trying to find the proverbial diamond in the detritus. Most ironic thing? I never once actually signed a guestbook back then.
Thank you for what you do on your site. You inspired me to start my own blog—something I've wanted to do for many years. A few months ago, I spent countless hours trying to make a 'cool' site for my blog. It never had a single post. In the past few days, I built a simple static site using just HTML and CSS. My inspiration for that started here, and I couldn't be more grateful.
Hey, I came here from Hacker News, and your posts are really resonating with me so far. I don't have much, I just wanted to say that I Was Here! Have a great day :D
Just came across your blog and I instantly added it to my RSS Reader. :D
Keep up the great work! Love your writing and I'm planning on reading up your past entries. Love the idea of guestbook, I'm going to implement one once I have finished redesigning and transitioning my blog into a digital garden.
I have been following the blog for quite some time now. I like Manu's minimalistic yet concise writing. I always learn about something new from his blog posts! :)
Currently for layout ideas and content ideas for extending my personal page and stumbled upon your page again. Changed not much, but holycow..alot of new content to check out. cheers Ben.
I've been meaning to say hello for some time now, but haven't gotten a chance to. Today, I'm making time to do just that. I very much enjoy your reading your blog, and always smile when I see an update from you. Keep on keeping on!
Just wanted to say hi and thanks for inspiring myself and others to utilize personal websites. I too have a passion for creating communities through personal blogs and websites. Love the idea of bringing back guestbooks.
I did wonder whether you'd go ahead with your guestbook in the end - I love it!
Thank you for being such a force for good on our web :)
You prove that we really do not have to do social media* and self-promote to be influential and respected.
* I like my masto friends though, so I'll keep going!
I appreciate the consistent mix of thoughtful and personal notes. Blogging done well, closest to what I'm hoping to emulate myself and what I wish more of for the internet. Keep going Manu.
I just started reading your stuff and I love the idea of rebelling against the algorithms. I was disillusioned with Meta at some point last year when I saw it was overrun by bots and algorithm BS. I was trying to follow the model of what I did with building my first business and it wasn't working with my second (at least the social media part wasn't), then I discovered another way through following Scott Perry and Seth Werkheiser and now I meet you and I love the idea of building something more human- a community of humans not caught in the social media spiral. Anyway, I look forward to reading more of your stuff. I think I signed up for everything.
hej,
first and foremost, I just wanted to say thanks again for helping me out with my master thesis by answering pseudonaive questions on Discord, it helped a lot!
Just read your post about browsers and AI and really appreciate your takes on the undisputed power of default [browsers] and the way chat interfaces eradicating the serendipity.
In the discourse about web practices, browsers are getting overlooked easily, although I personally strongly believe them to be a strong influence on the way websites are made, accessed and viewed.
I'm very inspired by your site!
My own site has been live for years, but not as active as I would like. Your site is inspiring me to publish more often :)
Hello from my RSS reader 👋🏾. I stumbled upon this article from a Starred ⭐️ Articles list I am subscribed. Love the Guestbook, it reminds me of the older web, the web I started on.
I consider myself fortunate to have stumbled upon this minimal website three years ago, and I'm delighted that I made the decision to purchase it for my own website—I'm still using it to this day! Your piece has a uniquely therapeutic effect on me; it seems to resonate deeply. You're like a distant friend whose company I thoroughly enjoy, even if it's just through reading your words. Hello again, from Singapore!
Just wanted to thank you for keeping my sanity in place with your posts, your approach to the internet, and how you bring well thought out content. Keep on going!
i just stumbled upon your site while catching up on 32bitcafe posts- i first want to say how much i enjoy the theme/layout- simple, minimalist, but has personality? i usually lean into maximalism, but your site smells like a book, freshly chosen from the library, and i love it.
also, interviews? get outta town!! i love interviews!! reading these has been a blast, and reminds me of why i love the personal web. if you ever want to interview me, as i am an absolute performative egotist bastard, feel free to email me at [email protected]. keep on doing what you do, please!
Hey, your website is great, almost as good as mine! Jk jk, I love the minimalism and simplicity. Almost makes me wanna work on a light mode for my blog! Thanks for making the web and my feed reader a more interesting place.
Thanks so much for the ongoing people and blogs series! It's fascinating to see how other people maintain their site and how the Isles of blogging are being inhabited. Keep it up!
Thank you for inspiring me to make my own guestbook, Manu! You're such an inspiration to all of us. I like how you've come to act both as somewhat of a thought leader and as the Simple Wikipedia of the IndieWeb.
Dear Manu,
I have this habit of subscribing to newsletters and reading them religiously for the first few days after which I lose interest in them. Then, I'll let them pile up for a few months before deciding to unsubscibe the list and delete them once and for all. Yours is the only one that I've stuck to. And I'm glad I did.
Chaitanya
Bom dia Manu,
I enjoy and look forward to your emails.
They make me pause and think.
One of these days I'll get off g-mail! Obrigadu
Manu, just want to leave a few words of appreciation here:
I don't recall how I first stumbled over your website, but ever since I've added it to my feed reader, I find myself nodding along on many of your observations around the state of the web as such. I'm a big fan of your efforts of revitalizing the personal web, be that via the P&B series, hosting the Indieweb carnival or the "I'll read it" initiative. I want to especially thank you for the latter. Following your lead there and extending the same offer has spawned many delightful connections and conversations for me.
Came here originally for the Ran Prieur interview. Really admire and appreciate what you’re doing. I cut my teeth on a successfully monetized blog started in 2016 with an expartner and had to shutdown the entire operation officially this past January 2025. Dreams deferred aside, your my affirmation that I need to focus on doing online what brings me joy first and foremost. When I feel adrift on the internet waves, I return to my favorite bloggers without the aid of automated reminders. That’s how memorable y’all are. Also, you should definitely write more vulnerable stuff. Thank you.
Thank you for your never ending inspiration and writing. Keep up the good work.
I am not an artist, but I am visual, so please take my tiny homage to 'Kilroy' in the spirit with which it is intended. Happy to be here and say ‘Hello’.
John Philpin
Ciao Manuel, from the other side of the beautiful Alps! Love your writing, and share the same dream of becoming a philosopher in the woods :) Take care
I have loved guestbooks. I still remember when I had a website designed with Macromedia Fireworks and built with Microsoft Frontpag: it had a static guestbook that it would email me and I would upload it online very slowly. I really like this one and will replicate it. I thank you for the many inspirations. A hug! Thanks!
Whee, a blog without comments! That sent me time-travelling to the "times before" when nobody had them. Just a few days ago, I left a couple of comments on a friend's blog and figured I might as well also put them in a blog post. Which I did. I look forward to reading more of your posts – and linking to them! I'm going to think about the guest book.
I've recently moved away from social media, and as a result, I'm now finding gems like your site. Lovely blog and great taste in fonts (aesthetically pleasing and easy to read)!
Your blog is an increasing source of inspiration for me! Each post makes the web a little bit better and yours is one I always look for in my RSS feeds.
OMG ... I can’t tell when I last wrote something into a guestbook or even saw one. :)
I enjoyed your article about the not dying web and acknowledge your statements. Subscribed to your RSS feed.
Manu, your site is a breath of fresh air. The P&B series keeps surprising me with incredible personal stories from across the web. Thanks for showing us there's still magic in blogging.
Hey, Manu. Just wanted to say I appreciate your blog and many of the things you write. Off the back of your post "Digital fatigue", I thought you might like this Ray Bradbury quote I was recently sent:
"Fall in love and stay in love. Explode. Don’t intellectualize. Get passionate about ideas. Cram your head full of images. Stay in the library. Stay off the internet and all that crap. Read all the great books. Read all the great poetry. See all the great films. Fill your life with metaphors. And then explode."
I have been reading your blog for only a couple of months but I have interacted with you some times via e-mail already. Your ideas are inspiring and you are an amazing person. Thank you and keep the posts coming!
Just stumbled on your site through another website. All I can say is I'm super inspired and I'm looking to speeding through all your posts (yes, all of them!). Hopefully this is the sign I needed to get back into blogging and writing in general. (>_<')
The personal website and blog "movement" has always been a breath of fresh air on this cluttered AI-filled web of today. Thanks for helping make the Small Web a bit "bigger" :)
Ciao Manu, I feel it’s high time to write a few words here. You already how much I appreciate your efforts in spreading “why blogs matter” and the kind help you offer to… well, anyone! You know that, but let me write it here as well. Hope you’ll get to the 1000th P&B discovery.
Cheers, see you around ✌🏻
Your thoughts and minimal design are cool. As as aspiring blogger I find much inspiration. Cheers! :D
Anonymous
hello Manu! I love the content and design of your site. It's calm, and always thought-provoking whenever I see new posts from you appear on my feed reader. Thanks for helping me discover 32bit.cafe and other wonderful personal blogs.
