"inclusion on someone else’s blogroll was very flattering"

About Fellow journeypeople, prepare to wallow in soggy nostalgia. Katy Lindemann's posted her blogging history, though to an extent its our collective history. If the screenshot of early Blogger doesn't make your heart leap, try:

"In the absence of comments or permalinks, the way we responded to someone else’s blog post was to write our own blog post, and link to said person’s blog. And as ever, inclusion on someone else’s blogroll was very flattering. We didn’t have Klout or PeerIndex or Technorati, but we did track popularity using the Beebo Metalog. Slightly obsessively in fact. Updated by hand, and with love, this was the ultimate weblogging popularity contest of the time."

Katy's first steps, from May 2000 are here.

Glancing over this, I've lately considered the currency of these three posts posted at Geocities in a basic attempt at a blog in late 2000. Should I really be counting that as my blog birth? Feeling Listless began in July 2001 and that's the date I've usually used when considering birthdays, but Katy's blog has gone through numerous titles and venues and she seems to be more interested in the longevity of the activity rather than the "publication".

But the six month gap of indecision seems to make all the difference.  After commenting on Christmas television for reasons I can't quite remember I decided to spend most of my time on Metafilter until I tried again six months later and the generally unbroken run up to now.  I was offline for a few months in 2002 due to a computer outage, but there's a difference I think, between enforced silence and not being bothered.

My conscience says July 2001, so July 2001 it is.  The one thing I can't remember is when this blog became part of the UK blogging community, if it ever has at all.  When like Katy's blog it was listed at the UKBlogs updater?  When Darren first linked to me? (which happened far earlier than I originally thought).  When I met my first other blogger?  (incidentally since you've read that linked post, Fani's just had a baby which shows how time flies).

Such things are probably for other people to judge.  Sometimes I feel like I missed being a genuine part of the community back then, isolated in my north-western hinterland, sometimes I oddly feel like I was more connected, when none of my closer friends even knew what weblog was.  But I'm in danger of going over old ground so perhaps it's time to stop.  This blog post, I mean.  Not altogether.  Like that's ever going to happen.