Friday, May 23, 2008

Birth of blog

It's been ten years, more or less, since Peter Merholz published a little squib in the sidebar of his Petermemes personal website and made a permanent dent in the worldwide lexicon.



Although the post was undated, I first noted its appearance here on May 23, 1999, earning me a citation alongside Peter in the Oxford English Dictionary entry tracing the lineage of the word "blog". Just three months later, on August 23, 1999, a San Francisco start-up called Pyra Labs launched Blogger, a public version of their internal weblogging tool (at one time billed as "Amphetamines For Your Website"), and...well, you probably know the rest.

Ah well. Happy birthday, you awkward, uneuphonious little word. I'm chuffed to say I knew you when you were but a wee blog.