Bringing back the personal
I’ve heard wisperings about the death of blogs lately. More and more we see our favorite writters fading into the ether. This begs the question, what’s next? What do we do with the barren ghost towns that once thrived on eager readers making sure their cache was cleared before delving into their bookmarks.
Personal sites should be cornucopias which chronicle our lives. They should be open sketchbooks crammed with a maze of twists and turns. We should be able to post without shame and wear like badges of honor that which demonstrates our progress. I want to browse sites like Chris Glass which feels like a time capsule where I can rummage around and get a sense of someone’s life. It’s incredibly motivating to see his travel logs, journal entries, photos and favorites. All neatly packaged with thought and purpose. You can tell this site plays an important role for him.
I think it’s obvious that 2007 is a turning point for blogging but it’s also a chance to question what we should strive for in a personal site. Social networking seems to have decentralized our lives and allowed us to stray farther away from our personal sites, but thanks to API’s we’re beginning to gain back some centralization. We really shouldn’t shackle ourselves to the output of an API, nor should we restrict ourselves to “dynamic content” that comes from a CMS. Most of us are highly skilled in HTML/CSS and we shouldn’t fear one off pages and designs. I remember the days of updating my blog via HTML, when I had something to show I didn’t ask how it was going to live in a CMS, I just threw it up.
With this in mind I don’t exactly know where this site is headed. There is a lot of data that I’m collecting and I haven’t figured out how to share or even make sense of it. I am, however, eager to explore the Art of maintaining a personal site and in the coming weeks I’d like to discuss this more along with some of my concerns regarding digital preservation. Stay tuned.
Related tags: blogging, personal, playgroundblues, preservation
Comments
Noel Hurtley http://noelhurtley.com
Great article.
I look forward to see what direction you take this site in.
Nathan Borror http://www.playgroundblues.com
@Noel - thanks man. I’m hoping May 1st Reboot motivates to take some new directions. Maybe some of those question marks in the nav and on the homepage will disappear.
some guy
i’m glad to see a blogger admitting that blogging has run its course. when bloggers have to publicly scheme up new ways to attract readers, it’s a sign of the end times. i for one will not miss blogs at all, although i will miss their comment forms, in which i can leave smarmy diatribes against the very people who have allowed me to speak freely. hear, hear.
Andrew S http://www.swinndesign.com
I don’t think weblogs really brought us much except for a increase in noise and repetition. While there are blogs that have value in their content (eg this one) I still prefer the website with that basic structure and regular more in-depth articles as opposed to daily snippets. I think the end came when things like Twitter and Jaiku hit the web bombarding us with more information no one really needed to know and causing many of us to switch off.
sandy http://www.sanlive.com/
insightful, and i agree. there was a freedom in the way things were back “back in those days” that seems to have been ‘routined out’ by the blog lifestyle. and agree with andrew s’s comment - it’s a lot noisier these days. i miss the intimacy and quiet of the personal site approach and wouldn’t be surprised if others miss it too.