Sri Lanka’s “main” blog aggregator Kottu.org passed the 1000 day mark sometime during Dec 31st 2007 and Jan 4th 2008. I calculated this based on this “soft launch” post by Indi which places Kottu.org’s “birthday” as 5th April 2005. The soft launch date is also confirmed by this post on Kavinda Munasinghe’s Blog. The earliest archive of the Kottu feed I could find on the Wayback machine is dated April 9th 2005. Even using the April 9th date and today, Jan 4th 2008, it is safe to say that the site has passed the “millennium day mark”.
The dates were calculated using the Easysurf’s Day Counter whose accuracy I haven’t check independently. I could be wrong if Kottu.org was launched earlier. Perhaps kottu’s janitor can correct me if I’m wrong since I didn’t hassle him for the info in this post 🙂
Nostalgia types can check out Kottu.org’s baby pictures on flickr and on the Wayback machine archives. Note: Clicking on the “Apr 04, 2005” link in Wayback machine archive the give me a “No Archive” error but the other links worked. There’s also a more mature looking snap shot from 2006 (I think).
The archives are quite interesting considering the current personal politics between prominent kottu.org personalities. Particularly if you are looking for something to procrastinate. Then there’s the earliest blogroll titled “Feeds” with some familiar and unfamiliar names.
Call it Internet archaeology or insider trivia, I feel this is a significant achievement. It is appropriate to look back this being the month of Janus. Kottu.org has grown in to a “community” or perhaps a sort of “eco-system” for Sri Lankan bloggers by providing a space of diverse content. Granted, the site carries only a fraction of Sri Lankan blogs. Without proper demographic/socio economic data I’m hesitant to make more generalisations about what Kottu syndicated blogs represent. Yet it has the feel of a bazaar of idea and voice which I’ve not seen anywhere else.
I’m convinced that it is the diversity of the blogs syndicated on Kottu that keeps it alive. All this has happened without too many grumbles by the janitor who shells out the hard currency for the domain (and most likely the hosting). Despite being vilified by some for his ideas, you have to agree that he has done a great service in the best traditions of the internet (warts and all).
It is natural to speculate about the road ahead. Change after-all is the only constant. However you won’t find me speculating about future. All I can hope it that the site will not be abused. Part of making that happen will depend on the bloggers whose posts it syndicates.
It would be interesting hear from bloggers old and new about how they perceive the site. In terms of traffic and their “growth” as writers/bloggers. The comment box is below. Better still, write a post on your blog about what kottu.org means to you and send a link.
Postscript
Found another kottu.org “baby” picture from the pre 1.0 days on indi.ca.
Cerno 
Wow, I’m blown. Cerno, you always come up with indepth articles with loads of interesting data and tools.
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Planet ApexThank you 😀 I think it is a result of being overly curious 😉
Btw, sorry for the delay in your comment appearing. It got tagged as spam for some reason 😐 I wish WordPress.com had a visual confirmation system so commenters can show that they are not spam bots
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Thanks for the post. I think that date is about right. The idea for Kottu was in a Nugegoda pastry shop, around March. That date is for the first iteration, when it ran on an entirely different platform than now. Concept still the same.
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indi: Very happy to write it 🙂 and thank you for Kottu. I wonder if the that Nugegoda pastry shop is still around. Mark it on wikimapia – not that I’m assuming you got that kind of time to waste
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I love this blog. Book marked it, so I will keep checking it 🙂 What I like the most are the satellite images. Please keep up the great work.
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wonderful post! 🙂
*i’m feeling nostalgic*
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like Kottu, cerno is a important part of Sri Lankan Bloglife., while Kottu provides a common space and a platform for all Sri Lankan bloggers to communicate and at times to sling mud (which i think is an essential part of blogging!) Cerno provides us with all kinds of interesting and thought provoking ideas and posts, once like the old stores and Bus art etc..
so thank you Indi for Kottu and Cerno for Cerno .hehee..
and Mrs Cerno too, i guess there is a woman behind every succesful blogger!
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VibeThank you 😀 Happy to hear that someone finds that Google earth stuff interesting. Which makes it all seem worth while 🙂
Anandawardhana Thank you 🙂
tinker Didn’t see myself in that way, 😉 but its a good feeling to get positive feed back 😀 I’ve always wondered if the stuff that I right is of any interest to other blog readers. I guess I can’t ignore the evidence now. I’m sure Mrs C will be pleased. Then she’ll spot all the typos in my blog posts for the last 6 month 😐
Sorry for the late display of your comment. It ended up in the spam queue for some reason. Aksmet, the wordpress.com spam filter is a rather paranoid.
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