Since the internet began to arrive in Spain in the mid-90s, many of us were the users, including myself, who began to explore the internet looking for web pages that were in Spanish, a rather complicated task at that time. At first, it didn’t matter what the page was about, the question was that it was in Spanish and to be able to access information that was stored on our equipment. As the internet grew as the number of pages in Spanish increased and the novelty of the internet arrived, it stopped being as exciting as it was at the beginning.
With the internet, downloads arrived, mainly music, but also applications illegally. But not always. One of the portable websites that began its journey at the end of the 90s was Barrapunto, one of the first websites of technology information which, in addition, also offered information about free software and digital rights, as we could read in its description.
A bit of history: the beginning of the blogosphere
Taking into account that the presence of media in Spanish was very scarce, and that, in addition, it focused its activity on the main technology, this website quickly became a reference for the Spanish-speaking internet, being considered by many as the beginning of what was later called the blogosphere.
Unlike today, where hiring a server or using a free one is very simple, at that time, it was an impossible mission to pay for it for the group of friends who set up Barrapunto. Initially, they maintained this platform using their own web servers whose bandwidth was ridiculous compared to current speeds, so on many occasions crashed and stopped working during several days.
When this group of friends saw that this hobby could have become a business, they supported themselves through advertising banners, for which companies paid to be displayed, not for impressions as they are today (remember that Google and Facebook were not yet in the minds of their respective creators). It was then that they decided, with the income, to spend a quality hosting to offer a decent service, since the number of monthly visits was growing as new users arrive on the internet.
New competitors: the fall from grace
Barrapunto was the precursor of Menéame, however, unlike this, all the news that was published was written by the collaborators and did not link to any other website. The purpose of the articles that were published was generate debate do not inform of new functionalities, novelties and others from the world of technology, free software and digital rights.
However, as the years went by, Menéame was gaining ground to Barrapunto. It also did not help that its founders were disassociating themselves from the project to focus their working lives within the technology sector, whether it was in the educational field as engineers for technology companies. The last article published in Barrapunto dates from 2018, specifically from June 8. A year later, the domain expired and no one renewed it, so what is considered by many to be the first technology blog in Spanish disappeared.
Alternatives to Barrapunto
As we have mentioned in previous paragraphs, Menéame was raised as the better alternative and more complete alternative to Barrapunto and was one of the culprits of its fall from grace. But, it is not the only one. Forocoches, another of the mythical Spanish websites, is another interesting alternative where all kinds of debates are generated, just like Foroparalelo without forgetting Reddit, although most of the community is English-speaking.
