Stuart at Astronomy Blog has posted an interactive timeline of astronomy blogs, showing when they went online. I thought mine was one of the early ones, but now I see things were already ramping up when I joined the fray.
The SIMILE software used to create the timeline has been around a while. I fiddled with it a year or so ago, wondering what I could use it for; I was at Sonoma State at the time and was thinking we could use it to show benchmarks in the construction of satellites. I like Stuart’s use of it, though.
February 1st, 2008 at 8:09 pm
“I thought mine was one of the early ones, but now I see things were already ramping up when I joined the fray.”
As I remember, your site was up for a while before you added the blog to it. In that case, Bad Astronomy itself may be older than most of the blogs, but the BABlog would be in the middle of the pack.
February 1st, 2008 at 8:10 pm
What I think is intersesting is after the April, 05 start of Archeaoastronomy, where was a slight lull, then a huge explosion of blog startups since then(There are small lulls but the explosion realy started in June/July of 05). Is it possible that means that the general population (i.e. ME) are getting more interested?
February 1st, 2008 at 8:51 pm
[…] The Bad Astronomer wrote an interesting post today on Timeline of astronomy blogsHere’s a quick excerptStuart at Astronomy Blog has posted an interactive timeline of astronomy blogs, showing when they went online. I thought mine was one of the early ones, but now I see things were already ramping up when I joined the fray. … […]
February 1st, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I`m actually quite surprised. I thought weblogs had been around longer.
February 2nd, 2008 at 12:02 am
For me the biggest thing is language. The NA release of Melee has both English and Japanese modes. I’m hoping for the same with Brawl; for this reason I’d rather wait for the American release.
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http://www.vcao.net
February 2nd, 2008 at 12:54 am
You were MY first astronomy blog!
February 2nd, 2008 at 8:33 am
I think blogs WERE around before I started mine; I began my web page (TheSpacewriter) in earnest in 1992 while in grad school. It was a text-only web page, written for LYNX. As Mosaic caught on, I learned more HTML and began coding my current web page in 1995, which is when I went to .com (I believe).
My blog began almost as soon as I found blogger in late 2001 and I experimented around with it before actually publishing my first entries in February 2002. I do recall that there were VERY FEW astronomy blogs around at the time, although there was a burgeoning number of science-related blogs in physics, chemistry, and biology. Also some science teachers had put up blogs for their students.
Amazing thing Dave has done…
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:19 am
Oops… sorry,I meant to credit Stuart, too!
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Say, umm, not to change the subject or anything, but there’s an “X” rated ad right there in the middle of the ‘blog timeline’ blog….
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Well, after scrolling way back in time (it takes ~10 minutes), I can verify that no science blogs were found for Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, etc.
Before year 1, the app switches to “1BC” (not BCE, BTW). And no, there was no year 0, so take that you “year-2000-was-the-millenium” people…
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:36 pm
I’d have to say he’s full of excrement - Transterrestrial Musings was online (at a different domain and only indifferently updated) as early as 97/98 or so. There was a huge explosion of space travel blogs around 2000 or so when rumours of Bush intending a big new space initiative began circulatiing. (Those most quickly died.)
This is really an ‘interactive timeline of some space and astronomy blogs that I like and that are more-or-less popular”.
February 3rd, 2008 at 2:09 am
The Daily Illuminator of Steve Jackson Games, while not astronomy based, might be the oldest still active blog. The entry from April 15, 2007 mentions this.
http://www.sjgames.com/ill/past.columns.html
February 3rd, 2008 at 8:40 am
It all depends on the definition of weblog: If it’s a site where brief content with links is added all the time, with the latest news usually on top, I would say my Cosmic Mirror qualifies - which has been running without a break since October 1996 (and the original format was even ‘bloggier’ than today’s).
In any case my Cosmos 4 U - now in the ‘official blog format’ - might qualify as the youngest astronomy blog. It addresses the active astronomy enthusiast who want’s to observe and/or see other observers’ achievements ASAP or wants to fiddle around on the computer - I was looking in vain for a blog or news ticker with exactly that approach and so I had to launch one myself …
Daniel Fischer
Germany
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 am
I responded to this yesterday, but I guess my comments were sent to the spam bin and BA didnt’ see them…
anyway, if this one gets through…
this is less about “who was first” as it is about someone trying to trace back the earliest blogs about astronomy. it’s not about definitions, per se… although several of us have been writing web pages since the early 90s — I started my web page in 1992, with updates from HST observations, space news, etc. before going to blogging format as soon as it became feasible to do so.
Looks to me like Stuart’s work is a “work in progress” and not a definitive listing of blogs.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:48 am
As CC Peterson says, it is a work in progress (I’ve added a note making that clearer now).
Derek Lyons, I don’t think there is any need for you to be abusive. You are mostly correct that it is an ‘interactive timeline of some space and astronomy blogs that I like’. I couldn’t possibly claim to be aware of every astronomy-related blog in existence. On the original post I had said that it included the blogs on my links page and a few others I had found. I don’t think it is fair to add the ‘mostly popular’ though. Some of the blogs may very well be popular now (e.g. this one, Star Stryder, Slacker Astronomy etc) but were only a few posts old when I originally found them and added them to my links page, blog roll or specifically mentioned them in a post. The list wasn’t compiled based on popularity. There are many blogs on there that don’t have the super-stardom of Phil’s blog.