10 years of TechnoLlama

I’m late to my own birthday party! I just realised that this blog turned 10 last month. How time flies when you’re having fun and all that.

I started the blog not really expecting much, it pretty much began as a personal project to save links to interesting content, and it was never intended to get any audience other than the occasional visitor from Google search engines. For the first couple of years or so, it did not have much of an audience. Looking at the very early posts, I realise that I was using the blog in ways that now have been replaced by Twitter and Facebook, using it as micro-blogging functions to highlight interesting content and links. Audience engagement really kicked-off until I started writing longer and more comprehensive pieces, particularly about subjects close to my heart, such as open source, software patents, and Creative Commons. I think that it was then that I managed to get a bit better at it, and the blog became the thing that it is now.

A lot has happened in those 10 years. While visiting numbers have continued to stay healthy, it is clear that blogging in general has been suffering, as some people tend to migrate to other mediums, such as Tumblr. A lot of blogs that I loved have disappeared, cementing the view that blogging itself has entered a more mature and less experimental phase. I do not blog as often as I did (undoubtedly as a result of finally getting a life), but I still find it hugely rewarding and fun to do. I just wish I had the time to write all of the things in my head.

Over the years I have written some articles that I am still hugely proud of. Here is a list of some of my favourite articles:

• Doctor Who: Partners in Copyright Crime. An article about a dispute involving knitting and Doctor Who fans. Neil Gaiman linked to this article, which still remains one of the highlights of my blogging career.
• Encouraging open source could land you in trouble. This is a blog post highlighting a case in which Indonesia was threatened with trade sanctions over its use of open source software. This article contains a verified and rare comment from Richard Stallman himself! More geek points.
• Should law enforcement pursue game theft? Several people have complimented the writing in this article. I had lots of fun writing about Big Bang Theory and virtual goods.
• How will ACTA affect UK copyright law? As far as longish blog posts about boring trade agreement negotiations go, this one was very informative and well received in general.
• A beginner’s guide to supporting Costa Rica. Nothing to do with the law, but this is by far the most viewed thing that I have ever written.
• Is Bitcoin Legal? One of my most controversial posts, I still think that some of my early criticisms of Bitcoin hold water.
• And my favourite blog post of all these 10 years is: Anonymous and the decline of individualism. I like this blog post a lot. While I think that I was very optimistic about the nature of Anonymous, I still think that the political ideas explored in the article are relevant today.

Finally, thanks for continuing to read my occasional rants and ramblings. I would not be able to dedicate the amount of time and money to this blog that I do without the certainty that there are people out there still reading, but also linking and sharing the content. You make the effort worthwhile.

Here to 10 more years of llamas.