The sad news around the web this morning is that longtime blogger and web pioneer Leslie Harpold has passed away. I remember enjoying her blog at hoopla.com before some domain scammer stole it from her. Over the years, her online Advent calendar has been a yearly tradition as well. But what I remember the most about Leslie is that I started receiving a lot of referrals sometime back in 2001 from a set of blog templates that she gave away for free. The set of default links (which I suppose was her “recommended reading” list) contains just 25 weblogs. I was incredibly surprised and proud to be among them, and I sent her an email to thank her. I don’t have her response anymore, but I do remember her being extremely nice. I never did get to meet her, but just today I’m discovering all the nice things she did for so many other people, few of whom she actually met face-to-face.
The world has lost a really good person, and I’ve lost someone who, in that still-odd parlance, was an “online friend.”