Too long; didn't read.

In 2001 (02? 03?) Zhan suggested I take a look at two community (i.e. 'Web 2.0,' i.e. 'social networking') websites: MetaFilter and Plastic. He was killing a lot of would-be thesis-researching time on those sites at the time, as I recall.

Plastic was the smartest, funniest Slashdot-like site back then.

MetaFilter was the deepest.

I sent my $5 for a MeFi membership, joined Plastic for free, and pissed away many many hours reading and occasionally ranting over the next mumblemumble years.

Plastic's gone and MeFi celebrates ten years of dilettantism, inanity, dogmatism, and genuine love this weekend. Here's to Matt Haughey, the most successful community architect on the Internet, and to the blue, green, and grey.

Comments

[Walter Biggins]

I used to be a regular reader of Plastic, back in the day, and it's not gone. It's by no means as active as it once was--loads of news aggregators do what it does much better, and more and more newsmagazines have incorporated blogs and link-post models into their content, so Plastic seems unnecessary now. So, the question is: Why does Plastic still exist? Or Metafilter, for that matter?

[Jasper]

tl;dr