10 Year Anniversary

written by: SAH

4/4/11

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Monkey River Town. The exact timeline of events that lead to the site's launch are lost to history — my memory no longer matches what proof I have. However, the beginning is somewhat chronicled on the "What is Monkey River Town?" page. Check it out. It's a nice slice of historical perspective.

I can still remember working on the first version of the site (what you see here is actually the second incarnation). And I remember collaborating with my coworkers at the time with the knowledge that we would all soon be former coworkers.

Monkey River Town predates the popular "blog" and was never meant to be the online diary most non-professional blogs became in those early days. We were, if anything, shooting for an online version of the op-ed and variety/entertainment pages found in newspapers. That is still the goal, even if we fail at it more frequently these days.

It was also pre-Facebook and LinkedIn, so it was supposed to serve as a social network of sorts. The company we worked for was going under. We wanted to create a tether to the past before being blown into the wind like so many dandelion seeds.

To some extent Monkey River Town is a source of digital nostalgia. Since then, nearly everyone has gone their own way. I honestly don't know how many of the original writers and readers still check in on the site with any regularity. However, we have clearly picked up readers over the years, despite a lack of advertising.

At the beginning we had many writers, each writing about their own interests. Some of my favorite articles on MRT are still from those early days. Chocolate Size, for example, still embodies a time and a group of people that the article's contents only hint at. I miss the contributions of Clarence G and John Robie. And I desperately wish we still had the energy and insight to provide those who ask with smarter answers than they deserve.

Over the years, we have amassed nearly a thousand articles, which seems a lot to us, but when put in perspective by the timeframe isn't really that much. However, not everything has been preserved, either. We lost some articles when we converted from the first site to this site (mostly due to laziness). And due to a lack of foresight at the current incarnation's inception, many of the home pages posts (dozens? hundreds?) are not preserved here.

I considered ending the site at this anniversary. Technology has moved on, just as my cofounders have. Monkey River Town is in need of a vast overhaul. Twitter essentially fills the roles of the Ponderings, and Facebook fills the role of virtually everything else. And, unlike at the beginning, nearly every news organization has an online presence now — though their model is still arguably self defeating.

Where will Monkey River Town go from here? I have no idea. At this point it is basically me and Cory Q. If were ever do manage to update the site, I think we will likely drop as much as we add. I have a site feature wishlist a mile long.

Whether you have joined us recently or you've been a reader since the beginning, I want to thank you for visiting Monkey River Town. I know the home page posts come less frequently these days, but you can still find Cory Q posting a new radio show nearly every week, and the Ponderings on the home page still change daily. In ten years, we have missed only a handful of days.

The past 10 years have been tumultuous to say the least and there is no indication the next ten years will be any more calm. But, as always, they should be interesting and I have no doubt that we at Monkey River Town will continue to add our own two cents to the vast oblivion of cyberspace for years to come.

(I said to the monkey.)

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