[14][15] Barger started Robot Wisdom[16] in February 1995, publishing essays and resources on James Joyce, AI, history, Internet culture, hypertext design, and technology trends.

"[20] These postings featured "a list of links each day shaped by his own interests in the arts and technology,"[21] thus offering a "day-to-day log of his reading and intellectual pursuits"[22] and coining the term "weblog" as a novel form of web publishing.

"[28] Robot Wisdom's Net.literate portal, which started in July 1998, was a human-edited web directory that served as a complement to Barger's weblog and aimed to provide the best links on a wide range of topics arranged in ten categories.

"[33] InfoWorld counted it among the very few weblogs that were "worth a visit,"[34] Brill's Content claimed that it presented "news the way web pioneers envisioned it—hypertextual, wide-reaching, and exhaustive,"[35] Fast Company called it "one of the best Web logs on the Net,"[36] Feed wrote that the site was "frequented by thousands of the Net's most knowledgeable,"[9] Wired hailed it as "one of the oldest and most popular weblogs,"[37] and The New Yorker commended Barger's "healthy appetite for everything from literature to science,"[38] whereas The Register found that "there's no better reader on the Internet than Jorn Barger.

"[13] An ACM paper discusses Barger and Chris Gulker, along with other early bloggers such as Raphael Carter, as the originators of blogging as a networked practice.

In December 1999, Barger linked to a passage by anti-zionist critic Israel Shahak, which drew a concerned response from a fellow blogger[47] and led to allegations of anti-Semitism.

"[41] Along with a reduced posting schedule and intermittent cessation of updates after 2000, Barger's unexpected anti-Israel turn has been cited as a main contributing factor to a "slow fade-out"[53] of the site's popularity and reputation.

On 10 February, Barger placed a note on his Robot Wisdom Auxiliary[58] weblog soliciting $10 (US) donations, payable to his web host, to help "save robotwisdom.com".

Barger has experimented with monetizing Robot Wisdom soliciting advertisements in 2000, and, in 2005, donations via PayPal, yet never made "any money from his Web log.

[62] Barger's website has been cited for "extensive research into the Ulysses and Finnegans Wake manuscripts,"[63] yet very little of this work has passed academic peer review.