It's been 4 years since I wrote my first blog post. If I said blogging has been very, very good to me, it would be no lie.

Back in 2003, I started blogging in New Jersey 2 months after leaving AOL and 7 months before moving (back) to California.

Getting ready to write this post, I went back to week one and read through the earliest posts--one post that caught my attention was a list of blogs I read--it's interesting to note that all of these blogs are still publishing, and that I have gotten to know many of the authors of these blogs in the real world, tho back in the day they were totally digital presences for me.

The March 2003 list of favorite blogs--with what I wrote at the time:

Romenesko: media news-- I tune into Romanesko several times a day, hoping for updates.
Gawker: Media, gossip and Nooh Yawk stuff-- The day Gawker launched, I started checking it as compulsively as AOL execs check their stock portfolios.
Boingboing: A directory of wonderful things--If only magazines were as interesting as Boing Boing!
Buzzmachine: Politics, news & blogging--Stylings, observations and sometimes rants from the inimitable Jeff Jarvis
Marc Canter's Voice:Got bandwidth, baby? Visions of next generation, high-bandwidth tools & products

Ross Mayfield: Mapping the blogosphere--Cogent analysis of the development of social networks meets rampant blogging evangelism

(Susan sez: Take note how remarkable it is that ALL these blogs--and bloggers--are still going strong.)

Back in 2003, I was impassioned about blogging and RSS and starting a small consulting practice focusing on business strategy, product development and audience customer acquisition/retention. After I'd been blogging for a few months, I ended up getting covered in a New York Times story, and then Dave Winer invited me to the first BloggerCon--an amazing experience--but no one I worked for cared about blogging, social media, or citizen journalism--all those things were way ahead of the curve--and how that all has changed.

Looking back, I see how many of the bloggers became my new community--since there was no business for blogging yet, we were bonded by our passion for the expressiveness, the authenticity and the tools--and the endless possiilities for tweaking and inventing improvements to these brand-new platforms.

Now, 4 years in, blogs have truly entered the mainstream and my own passion for blogging remains unslaked--as does my appreciation of the people I have meet as I learn about--and build--social media.

Happy blog anniversary to me--hope to reference this post when I hit year number 5.

Bonus links
Anniversary #2
Anniversary #3

Side note #1
So you might ask, what are the blogs I read obsessively today?
Well, my stalwarts are aggregators Techmeme, WeSmirch, BlogHer and Digg, plus Paid Content, Valleywag, Techcrunch--and my 800+ feeds in my Bloglines reader, where sonline dating, sex and relationship blogs hold almost equal sway at this point with media, tech, and tech entrepeneurs.

Oh, and I am obsessed with both flickr and upcoming, which provide endless minutes of interesting discoveries.