Seven Corners of the Internet Still Worth Visiting

The internet is more interesting when you stop asking it to entertain you.

Instead of opening the biggest feed, start with a small question: what have people kept making even though the algorithm does not particularly reward it?

Here are seven useful directions.

1. Personal homepages

Find someone who keeps a page of notes, links, photographs or projects. Personal sites are small acts of editorial judgment. They are often the best possible guide to what one person has found worth learning.

2. Public archives

Archives preserve the texture of a subject. Look for collections of old manuals, interface screenshots, radio recordings, local history and ephemera. Search is more rewarding when the answer is not already summarised for you.

3. Tiny web toys

A small interactive page can teach you more about a medium than a long product announcement. Click around. Notice what the maker chose to make possible.

4. Independent newsletters

The best newsletters are not content calendars. They are a relationship with a person’s attention. A good one sends less than a feed and says more.

5. Open-source project logs

Read the issues, changelogs and design notes. The decisions around a project are often more useful than the polished landing page.

6. Weird specialist forums

Specific communities still know things. Look for the place where people discuss one tool, one craft or one obscure problem in enough detail to teach a newcomer.

7. The link at the bottom

When you find something good, look for its links page, blogroll or references. The web is a network of recommendations made by people, not just systems.

Curiosity is a better search engine than it gets credit for.