I've long had a fascination with blogging. They consituted a large part of my first experiences of the web. Browsing for endless hours, mostly trying to find free games but occasionally stumbling onto interesting thoughts or quirky websites was how I'd spend my childhood. There's something deeply meaningful about this perspective of the internet, an interconnected web where you find all kinds of web logs from people around the world. That definitely isn't my experience of the web anymore and it seems to be a common feeling to me. All good things must come to an end. Or should they?
One force I feel is driving this change is the enormous efficiency & capability gains from standardising content formats & single platform hosting. Walled gardens have an inherent advantage here. As with all technological changes, I wonder if this remains true today. If hosting can be taken care of in a way that isn't burdensome to the user and does not limit their freedom, I feel the architecture of the open web will take care of discovery & recommendation. I'm not a 100% sure this will be the case but I want to experiment in this direction. Dot Asterisk is my attempt at this. A stead of liberty if you will.