Richard MacManus

@ricmac
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Technology Analyst, Web & AI · Internet Historian @ https://cybercultural.com · Founded ReadWriteWeb (2003–2012) · 🥝 in 🇬🇧
Homepagehttps://ricmac.org
Internet history bloghttps://cybercultural.com
Alt a/chttps://indieweb.social/@classicweb

Thanks to @jaz and the @teamtoot team, I’ve upped my laptop sticker game (the other stickers were courtesy of @andypiper a while ago). #TootWales

P.s. happy #StDavidsDay to all.

@jaz opening the #TootWales event this evening in Cardiff, at the scenic Glamorgan Cricket Club.
This book spoke to me today at my local indie bookstore. No idea why… #AIculturalstagnation
Visiting Bristol on a day off is like catching up with your heavily tattooed friend.
My employer, The New Stack, has just moved from Title Case to Sentence Case in its headlines (i.e. lower-case instead of capitalizing). I hadn't really noticed before, but most of the tech news sites in our orbit do the same — The Verge, TechCrunch, et al. It actually does seem more easy to read headlines and scan them on a homepage with Sentence Case. I'm thinking about making this change on Cybercultural too. The big traffic question: does this help with Google Discover? Any #SEO folk know?
Had a day off today and went to Hay-on-Wye (the UK’s book town) with my daughter. I managed to find a 2006 web design book, packed with screenshots. Anyone else a fan of the “Web Design Index by Content” books? #WebDesignHistory
Just checked my Google search traffic stats, and boy this is becoming grim for web publishers: Clicks Per Impression for Cybercultural is down to an all-time low of 0.37 (was as high as 2.24 in mid-2024). BUT search impressions is at an all-time high, and still climbing as I continue to post new articles. The problem, as the chart with the blue line shows, is that click-thrus flatlined last year and in December began to dip again. This will only get worse this year, as AI Mode really kicks in.
Red robin just minding his own business on a chilly winter day. #ukbirds
Remember when we all had loads of different social web services to post different content to? Was reminded of this when looking at an old version of my personal website. I used to post artsy-fartsy stuff to Soup.io, book content to Goodreads, do goofy Foursquare checkins, and yes I’ll admit I indulged in “frictionless sharing” from Spotify for a while. Anyway, thinking I might up my Artsy-Fartsy content here on my Mastodon account. Or maybe use another fedi app like Wafrn, which is Tumblr-like.
Back at work, but I had a nice one-week break over xmas. I always enjoy catching up on reading during time offs, and one of the books I read this time was an excellent biographical portrait about Muriel Spark. She was obsessed with Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, and Mary Stuart queen of scots. Fun read. #bookstodon