Sure, you have your Facebook page, your Virb profile and your MySpace “thing”. You’ve got your Flickr stream, your Upcoming events, and your Twitter status.
But I’m talking about having a website. Those services are great, don’t get me wrong, and maybe you want to use one of them to create your website and that’s fine. What I’m making a case for is a stake in the internet ground to call yours. A little online personal identity. It doesn’t have to be much. Some of my favorites are just splash pages or compilations of links to peoples other online profiles or identities. There’s the now old standby, a blog, where now you can even get fancy and start using pulling in data from Flickr, del.icio.us/Ma.gnolia, Upcoming, and the other “Web 2.0” mash-up ilk. It doesn’t need a fancy domain name, just someplace to call your own.
I guess I’m just tired of joining the next social network and instead just enjoy the plain old vanilla internet. Is that old skool? Have I jumped the shark? Do you remember joining Friendster having fun for two weeks, then asked yourself what’s the point? Now do you look at MySpace and Facebook and just think Social Network 2.0?
I’m not really trying to be a curmudgeon and reject the new outright, but last week I ran across Chris Glass’ website it reminded me of how much fun I had exploring peoples personal sites just a few years ago. With all the hype surrounding new social networks, a case can and should be made for those, you know, personal websites, that we used to visit. Blogging and the internet is, among many other things, just one big social network.
Alright, I’ll now go kick back in my rocker, turn on my AM radio on, and read a few pages from a dusty old book.
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Don’t forget to crank up the gramaphone ;-)
But seriously - I completely agree. I’m tired of signing up for the next big thing and setting up pages at various social network sites which I tend to create and then ignore for the most part. I tell myself that it’s just an excuse to “take the name” and prevent anyone else from using it.
Hey Tom! Hope you’re well. Agree with what you’re saying, but I think the problem is outside of geekdom, actually designing and building your own little site - no matter how small - is still technically out of reach of most people unfortunately. All these social sites help people have a presence on the web without having to build and maintain. It’s a shame there’s still no really easy way to self-publish online - apart from having a blog of course, or paying for nasty hosted ‘sites’ which invariably look pretty grim!
I was quickly full of it, too. I actually even have a deviantART account that fell into a state of stable underuse after two months. I’m not that much younger than you, but I’m probably just as jaded about the whole avalanche.
My current web page is about as complete as Brian’s, but I’m actually working on that “home page” feel. Chris Glass’s website is pretty darn cool. I must take hints from it.
Now, of course I can’t really promise anything. Academy is starting in three weeks, and I better finish these client “things”…
Interesting observation and point. By default it almost seems as if an person’s own website only function as a adjunct to social network such as myspace. Perhaps because it generates more traffic.
Wow, totally.
i see you and raise you a black and white TV.
i, too, finally succumbed to the fad that is myspace and facebook, and found that the cool part about facebook is that i’m able to import my website blog. myspace has no such feature. mostly i have these sites - with links to my real website - to appease my less nerdy friends who wouldn’t be able to find me otherwise. furthermore, it seems to me that these social networks have become something akin to high school cliques with ratings and best friends groups, etc.
an unfortunate consequence of super-user-friendly webpage design, to be sure.
Hear! Hear!
I find myself longing for more permanent expression. Not like permalinks are permanent. More like how site sections, the stuff we used to dedicate to a folder created manually (not with those fancy rewrites), are permanent.
All: Just wanted to apologize. I recently moved 110am over to a new server and forgot to switch the comments over to auto approve! Not to worry though your comments are now up.
Lisa: I agree. The barrier to entry for creating a website is still far too difficult. I do like that these services allow people a quick way to publish online. It’s the “porous” walled garden they create that makes me a bit frustrated.
Scott, Jorge, Rob, April, AdamD: Thanks! Glad I’m not a crazy digital hermit!
It isn’t just a barrier to getting it set up, it is also a barrier to getting eyes, comments, conversation, and encouragement to keep posting. You have lots of contacts that use feed readers and bother to comment, but most people don’t.
The Facebook News Feed is an easy way to see all of that stuff (events, photos, status updates, posts) in one place. People that use it don’t mind or enjoy that it is semi-walled, and surely don’t mind that they don’t have to sign up for, add friends, and figure out how to use (upcoming, flickr, twitter, and wordpress) and add all of their contacts’ feeds for all of those sites to a feed reader.
Facebook News Feed == the long-tail for eyes?