20 Year Anniversary

Today is my Birthday and also the 20 year Anniversary of this blog which was started on 31st July 2000. I believe I was possibly one of the first magic blogs on the internet, given that the term ‘weblog’ was coined in 1997 and the term blog in 1999.

It is fun to look back over 20 years of archives and see what was around back then, I was collecting links not just for magic, but juggling, origami, circus and other allied arts. I also started writing convention reviews, namely two giant FISM reviews in 2003 and 2006 that even got published in Genii magazine and I also started writing for Magic Convention Guide with reviews of Blackpool and IBM conventions.

Then in 2011 I made a huge decision to take one of the biggest leaps of my life and start my own business, which has been running for 9 years now. You can see that this pretty much coincides with this blog dropping off. Turns out running a company is all consuming, who knew?! I have posted somewhat sporadically since then, and I don’t know if that will change, who knows, but I like having this little corner that no one visits, but that I can write things, and they can be linked too etc.

The world has changed from 20 years ago, they said blogging was dead, I’m not quite so sure, I still read a bunch of magic and technology blogs. Another old technology based on RSS, podcasts, have made a huge leap in popularity, with a number of magic podcasts springing up, and of course that little video site known as YouTube has spawned magic content for good and bad.

YouTube wasn’t even a thing 20 years ago, only being started 5 years after this blog, but now you can find anything and everything. It brings with it magic exposure for good or bad, lots of young magicians only consume and learn from YouTube. And also has spawned lots of magic content including review shows and the ability for performers showcase performances and allowing us to see old archive footage of magicians of the past.

It seems fitting then that I am still consuming, watching, reading, learning a huge amount of magic, and the single best thing I have been obsessed with over the last 5 years has been a blog. A big shout out must go to Andy over at The Jerx. Who knew starting a blog these days would get the amount of attention and traction. Andy is an anonymous amateur magician who blogs about amateur and social magic, something that very much fits my circumstance. I have been very happy to pay into his site to support his writing and receive his yearly book. Whoever he may be, he is writing some of the best, most creative, funny, incredible, thought provoking writing in magic at this present time, in the form of a blog. Long live blogging!