Cultural Gentleman
Kottke.org:
The Review
by James Marwood
Blogs have been around for a long time. One
of the oldest, and best is Jason Kottke’s
kottke.org. Started in 1998, it is still one of the
worlds highest trafficked sites, and a perennial
favourite. I’ve been following the site for 10
years or so, and it remains one of the best
sources of interesting, fun and engaging stuff
on the web.
Still run by Jason Kottke, it has a wide list of
contributing editors. The focus is on design,
internet and current events. Normally
delivered via links to material elsewhere, with
personal commentary. It does occasionally
veer into politics, but getting past that and into
the meat of the site is easy. Today I browsed
articles on Van Gogh, Facebook’s design
changes, Wreck-it Ralph and optical illusions.
The content is nothing if not eclectic.
One thing I especially value is the way Jason
has been able to incorporate ads into his site
without obscuring or damaging the
experience of reading the site. Unlike many
other high-traffic sites his sticks with a
discrete sidebar ad from the Deck, which vets
all adverts to make sure they don’t include
malicious links or code.
I normally browse Kottke.org towards the
end of the day when my attention is waning
and I need a quick burst of inspiration and
fun. It never fails to give me something
amusing and interesting.
32