Ten years of blogging … maybe?

Doc Searls posted today about his return to blogging after finishing a book he’s working on. Doc’s been blogging longer than most anyone else: twelve years!

Reading that rattled something in my brain, so I decided to check my own blogging record:

Domain Name: MARKTURNER.NET
Registrar: GKG.NET, INC.
Whois Server: whois.gkg.net
Referral URL: http://www.gkg.net
Name Server: NS1.HE.NET
Name Server: NS2.HE.NET
Name Server: NS3.HE.NET
Name Server: NS4.HE.NET
Name Server: NS5.HE.NET
Status: clientTransferProhibited
Updated Date: 29-nov-2010
Creation Date: 24-nov-2001
Expiration Date: 24-nov-2014

Aha! I registered my MT.Net domain ten years ago this month. How long I’ve maintained a blog, however, is a bit harder to pin down. My first post using dedicated blogging software came in 2002, however I was posting screeds on my website as early as 1995 (though I don’t have any of these online from that timeframe at the moment). The word “blog” hadn’t been invented yet. Blogging platforms hadn’t been invented yet. Web languages like PHP were in their infancy. If I had wanted something automated I would’ve had to hack it out myself.

I do have my 1995-era posts archived, though, and I’ve considered retroactively adding them to this blog. They are an amusing look at a young geek full of promise but lacking polish. Maybe they’d entertain others, too, I don’t know. But would counting them as blog posts be considered cheating? I’m not sure.

Anyway, here’s to the next 10 years. Or 16! Or whatever!