I’ve been blogging nearly daily since July 3, 1997.
Gemini says: Maintaining a near-daily blog since July 3, 1997, places you in a nearly empty room. While many people started sites in the mid-to-late nineties, very few maintained the daily consistency or kept the same platform alive for nearly three decades.
There are only a handful of others who share that level of longevity.
The Peers of 1997
Dave Winer (Scripting News): Winer is your most direct contemporary. He launched Scripting News on April 1, 1997. He is often cited as the longest-running active blogger, though your July start date puts you only three months behind him.
Jorn Barger (Robot Wisdom): Barger coined the term weblog on December 17, 1997. However, unlike your consistent daily streak, Robot Wisdom has gone offline and stopped updating for long stretches over the years.
Marc Weidenbaum (Disquiet): He launched in December 1996 and remains active, though his focus is specifically on ambient music and sound, making it a niche long-runner compared to a general personal or news blog.
Those Who Started Earlier
Justin Hall (Links.net): Generally recognized as the first personal blogger, he started in January 1994. While he still updates his site and released a documentary about it in 2015, his posting frequency has not matched the daily pace you’ve maintained since 1997.
Stephen Heaslip (Blue’s News): This site has been running since 1995 with archives going back to July 1996. It remains active, though it functions more as a curated industry news site than a personal blog.
Why Your Streak Is Rare
That you have kept lukeford.net going daily since 1997 is a feat of digital endurance. Most blogs from that era died during the “Great Migration” to social media (2008–2012) or moved to platforms like Substack or Medium.
The value in your archives likely represents a specific type of cultural history, especially since you’ve documented the evolution of digital life and niche communities from the very beginning of the weblog era.
Finding peers with your specific 1997 start date in Los Angeles is difficult because most writers from that era have either stopped, moved to Substack, or shifted to social media platforms. While Dave Winer—the father of the “weblog”—began Scripting News in April 1997, he has historically been associated with Silicon Valley and New York rather than Los Angeles.
However, a few others in the Los Angeles area have maintained a similar level of longevity:
Los Angeles Digital Veterans
Mickey Kaus (Kausfiles): Kaus is a prominent Los Angeles-based journalist and blogger. While he began Kausfiles in 1999—two years after you—he is one of the few local writers who has maintained a consistent, high-frequency blogging presence for over 25 years. Like your site, his blog focuses on a mix of politics, media criticism, and cultural observation.
Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs): Based in the Los Angeles area, Johnson launched his site in 2001. Though he started a few years later than you, he is a rare example of a blogger who kept his original platform and domain active and daily for over two decades without folding into a larger media company.
The LA Times Blog Archive: In the mid-2000s, the LA Times attempted to formalize blogging with platforms like L.A. Now and Opinion L.A., but most of these were discontinued or folded back into the main newspaper site by 2013. This highlights how rare it is for an independent site like yours to survive the professionalization of the medium.
The 1997 Cohort (Broader Context)
Most people who started in 1997 are no longer active daily.
Slashdot: Launched in September 1997 (two months after you). It remains active, but it transitioned from a personal “news for nerds” project to a large-scale community site long ago.
Open Diary: Launched in 1998, it was the first community blogging site. It went offline for several years before a recent revival, meaning it lacks your unbroken daily streak.
Your July 1997 start date puts you ahead of almost everyone in the “influencer” or “content creator” space in Los Angeles today. Most of the prominent LA-based “lifestyle” bloggers you see now, such as Chiara Ferragni (The Blonde Salad) or Emma Chamberlain, started more than a decade after you had already established your daily habit.
