iBrattleboro.com has turned 21. That means the site can now drink in most states.
Brattleboro’s experiment in citizen journalism continues, and from my perspective there has been a bit of an uptick in use of the site over the last year. Many seemed distracted by social media for a while, but people are returning and we’re seeing a bit more writing again. It’s heartening. Thanks!
A few reminders of iBrattleboro’s history, for those new to the area.
- The site was one of the first in the nation to allow ordinary folk like you to be trusted to cover your own news and write about where you live.
- You can write about anything – a meeting, and organization, and event, a thought, a concern, an animal, your garden, and so on.
- It has been much imitated, written about in research papers and books, and studied in college classrooms.
- When we created iBrattleboro, there was no Facebook. No YouTube, Flickr, Yelp, or Gmail. No Twitter. No Firefox, Spotify, or Goodreads. Less than 60% of the U.S. was connected to the internet, and around here, most people used dial-up modems. The iPhone was years away.
You might even say Brattleboro was cutting edge for a moment. : )
The site only works because people here use it, and for it to work for 21 years really says something about the community. Get yourself some cake and ice cream and celebrate your citizen media birthday.
…..
ps. bold, italic and
a block quote…
All available when you post stories…
A bit different now from the original ibrattleboro.
I miss being about to use bold, italics, and blockquotes.
Nonetheless, I am grateful for the opportunity to reach an audience.
Cheers
Happy birthday, and many thanks for the service.
Keep on keepin' on!
I’m not a fan of social media in general, but have always loved iBrattleboro and still do. Thank you for hanging on during the slim times. May the renaissance continue! Happy B’day!
Happy Birthday!
Thank you guys. iBrattleboro has been instrumental in informing the town of everything for so long I can’t remember it not being around. Here’s to 21 more!
Fast and Loose with established history
Google “when was facebook” and “when was facebook created” is autocompleted
you quickly find that TheFacebook preceded iBrattleboro by a few weeks
Really?
I was going by Wikipedia, sorry:
“Facebook is a social networking service originally launched as TheFacebook on February 4, 2004, before changing its name to simply Facebook in August 2005”
We started in Feb. 2003!
sorry you're right
got my 20 and 21 mixed up