markjgsmith

Looking back at linkblog.io

2020-11-26 13:30:00:00 +07:00 by Mark Smith

I recently announced the end of linkblog.io. I go into a bit of detail in this short indie hackers discussion thread. I wanted to do a quick retrospective to have something to refer to in future.

I’ve been running a linkblog for close to 10 years. In a lot of ways all the links I’ve posted chronicle my web development journey, but also just life in general. I found it a very useful tool and still do to this day. Somewhere along the way I decided to build a linkblogging SaaS product.

These were the high level goals of the system that emerged over time:

From a technical standpoint I achieved all of these goals.

I wrote about Robust NodeJS Architectures earlier in the month, and this describes very closely what the linkblog.io infrastructure looked like.

Some other application level features and capabilities that are worth mentioning:

Implemented using bash scripts:

Most of these features were added as a necessity in response to real world events that happened during development.

Though the UI is quite minimalist and mostly text based, there was quite a lot going on underneath. The system could have been quite easily and safely extended.

Finally here are some screenshots of the UI:

Landing Page - Header

Landing Page - Header

Landing Page - Description

Landing Page - Description

Landing Page - Features

Landing Page - Features

Landing Page Latest News

Landing Page Latest News

User Linkblog Page

User Linkblog Page

User Post Message Page

User Post Message Page

User Archives Page

User Archives Page

User Search Page

User Search Page

User Edit Mode Page

User Edit Mode Page

FAQ Page

FAQ Page

User Billing Page - Fresh Load

User Billing Page - Fresh Load

User Billing Page - Add or Update Card Extended

User Billing Page - Add or Update Card Extended

User Profile Page

User Profile Page

User RSS Feed

User RSS Feed

That was linkblog.io!

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