I wrote these words about why I have a web presence sometime back in around 2000. At the time, I was running an incarnation of my website that has long since vanished. I started building a personal site for myself in the back end of 1993, when HTML markup first hit the scene, and I had very little to do while working the night shift.
Over time, of course, many things have changed. A couple of years ago, the craze we know as blogging planted small roots but grew quickly. Drowning, as I was at the time, at an internet advertising company I toyed with, but never fully developed, the concept of my blog. I played with Blogger and thought about all the great site management it offered (at one time I worked for a company that built a large, complex site with almost no concept of a content management system). Still, I kept a small site at curnow.org and thought nothing more of it.
When the internet business went into free-fall and I, fortunately, remained in gainful employment, I once again investigated a blog. I thought the industry’s hard times were worth documenting, and I tried, but I soon grew tired of the project. So I turned the blog into a personal journal (rather, a weblog) and updated it daily. Daily updates, of course, are beyond many of us and again, I gave up.
Of course, the logical progression is to what it has become today – an oft-updated collection of thoughts and ramblings (akin to drunken conversations in a pub, but without the sickening “what did I say” feeling the next morning). Without the self-imposed pressure to do something daily, it’s a much better experience (from the author’s side).
So, what is it?
It is, of course, a personal site. These are my ramblings, and I can’t blame anybody else for the lack of interesting, entertaining or useful content. Still, it’s much more fulfilling than a static site with a few pictures of friends. It’s a place to vent, a place to keep things that I want to be reminded of in the future (or remember to do tomorrow). In my head, it is some kind of journey that I have embarked on and don’t know where it will finish (but that’s what life is). In the grand scheme of things, however, it is an utterly pointless exercise.
It is a weblog (rather than a journal) where I comment on things that interest me. Some of those things, obviously, are directly related to my life, but most of the content is not a diary version of my life. I have seen journals and web logs referred to as mini-soap operas before. You can see into somebody else’s life. Well, I don’t think this site will do that for you. It may give you an idea of what is on my mind right now, but I don’t comment on many things, so I suspect anyone reading this will get a wholly unrealistic picture of me. My favourite journals and weblogs are listed in the Give Us Our Daily Blog entry.
Is it pointless then?
Despite what I said above – not really. If you didn’t read the link at the top of the page, do so now (I’m too lazy to copy the text, and my impression count goes up). I think personal publishing has real power. This is my little contribution.