The Kottke.org Rolodex
Over the weekend, I added a new feature to the site that, for now, is only accessible from the front page of the site, right after the third post on the page. It’s a list of websites and people that I follow — “kindred spirits, friends, open web enthusiasts, role models, fellow travelers, and collaborators”. It’s a blogroll, but I’m calling mine the Kottke.org Rolodex. Here’s what it looks like:
AI slop content increasingly proliferates on the internet and traffic from large tech companies like Google and Meta continues to fall off. In just the last two days, The Verge and Wired have launched new features that aim to strengthen their direct relationships & trust with their readers. From Wired’s announcement:
The platforms on which outlets like WIRED used to connect with readers, listeners, and viewers are failing in real time; Facebook traffic disappeared years ago, and now Google Search is dwindling as the company reorients users to rely on AI Overviews instead of links to credible publishers. More and more users are also skipping Google altogether, opting to use chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude to find information they once relied on news outlets for. Meanwhile, AI-generated slop and mis- and disinformation are seeping into the internet’s every pore, polluting social media feeds and drowning out news and human-driven storytelling.
At WIRED, our solution to this so-called “traffic apocalypse,” and the AI sloppification of the internet, is simple: connect our humans to all of you humans.
Some of the sites on the Rolodex have been moving in this direction as well — and KDO has too of course: with the membership program, comments on posts, the redesign, and some of the other social features that have been creeping in here and there, as well as some tried-and-true methods of direct connection like the twice-weekly newsletter, the RSS feed, and syndication to social sites that don’t devalue links, like Bluesky and Mastodon.
The Rolodex is part of this “strategy” of relationship-building and strengthening of trusted sources of information. You readers are curious about what I read and pay attention to, I enjoy linking to things I like (duh), and I believe it’s more important than ever for those sites who traffic in knowledge & curiosity and care about humans to acknowledge and stand with each other. As I wrote last year, we are not competitors; we are collaborators:
I love linking out to other sites. The strength of the open web is in its many connections between nodes…the more, the better. Links are the whole goddamned point of the web! I want to send people away from kottke.org to learn something new or have a chuckle and then come back the next day for more. The goal is connection, knowledge, and sharing — I proudly have no competitors in this endeavor, only collaborators.
So pop on in to the front page of the site and scroll down a bit to take a look. Clicking the “refresh” link will load five more sites from the list. I hope you find something you like.
That’s not all I’m hoping to do with the Rolodex, but it’s a good start. Feedback, etc. is welcome.
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I love the idea, but I never actually go to little.org proper - I read through the RSS feed. Is there some way to have it generate an "article" once a day that could pop up in RSS feeds? ("KDO Rolodex Page-a-Day calendar.")
Yeah, the RSS feed and newsletter could both use some Rolodex love.
I was going to write a footnote about this bit but forgot, so I'll do it here:
I put "strategy" in quotes because this isn't actually how I think about any of the stuff on the site at all. Everything here flows from my interests and values, not from some overarching strategy. I built the Rolodex because it seems fun, adds to the open web, and builds community.
Something like a "hindsight strategy" or "huh, I did a strategy".
"Everything here flows from my interests and values"–I admire how you haven't wavered from this for decades.
The Rolodex is another form of "View Source" for the site.
Love the rolodex. It feels like the natural evolution of the old blogroll, if social networks had never taken over the web. And it's a really good discovery tool! Both for things that are new to me, and old favorites I haven't seen in a while.
Yes! I was thinking exactly this - reminds me so much of how we all found each, became connected, learned new things through the good ole blogroll
I love this so much. Just in the last hour and a half I've discovered so many wonderful things and links out to other places. It feels like the way the web used to be. Some joy, some sadness, some hope.
Thanks for this gift, Jason.
Hey Jason, maybe it's me but I can't see any way to see the rolodex. My default browser is Firefox (v140.0.4). I also tried a private browsing window to see if any of my extensions were causing issues. And I tried safari (v18.5). What should I be looking for? Is it the circles on the left hand side of the front page? They all resolve to plain old kottke.org at the moment.
It's on the front page of the site if you scroll down in the main feed...just after the third blog post.
Ya I see how it works, now. I assumed that it would be a static link of some kind that would take me to a rolodex page. I mistook the rolodex itself for a screenshot of what it would look like.
Great to see the pendulum swinging back toward a more open web.
This reminds me of the "Links" page on blogs back in the day. Those link referrals were so incredible. I made a ton of friends/contacts simply by linking to them on my site.
lol, I assumed it was an ad and didn't look at it 😭
Delighted to find, after refreshing a bunch of times, we have very similar trust in who we follow.
There's a lot of good energy going around. It feels like we're reinventing the early 2000s these days. Social and search are failing us so we're reinventing blog rolls. It was fun watching this build organically back in the day but I wonder if we can recapture the magic.
The comments thread on my personal blog used to be a lively back-and-forth, with a solid community forming around it and the two-dozen-or-so active blogs that formed around it. But nowadays I'm lucky if I get a few comments all year. Comments are also dropping away in the niche-but-longstanding print/online publication I work for, especially worrisome as they've been basically powering our letters-to-the-editor column for the last dozen years. I wonder if people are just more reticent to share outside of established bulletin-board-esque websites (eg Facebook, Reddit, Substack). Glad to see it's working on Kottke!
I miss the 2005 web so much.
Thank you for your generosity, and for showing us a way forward.
I love this. Jason, I want you to know: not only does the blog continue to rock after all these years, but your creativity with integrating social features and this kind of thing into the blog, esp. since the redesign, has been really inspiring to me. I think this is the future of the good part of the web.
I love this. I'm finding that as the internet enshittifies, I have to find new ways of navigating it. I have to get off the AI-encrusted superhighways that our corporate overlords are trying to shunt us onto. Your Rolodex is an off-ramp from that highway, onto the side streets of unique and interesting hidden neighborhoods, and winding country lanes of the internet.
I like this idea.
If it were me, I'd also make a separate page with all of 'em and link to that from the widget.
I think it would be cool if members of the KDO community could suggest people or sites that could be added to the KDO Rolodex.
All additions would be at Jason's discretion, of course.
I love the rolodex. I've found a bunch of f great new sites/authors, but I'm also rediscovering sites that used to love but haven't thought about in a decade or more. Happy to see so many still going strong. I need to dust off that old RSS reader.
Just saw Textism pop up in the rolodex. ❤️ I miss the old web.
I refreshed the design of the Rolodex on the front page and added a page with the full list of sites.
Well that satisfied my curiosty!... Full list approaching 200.....my winter nights now fully sorted!
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