Still Blogging In 2017

Last week, Tim Brey posted a piece on his blog titled "Still Blogging in 2017" that was shared by Jason Kottke on his own blog. That's how I came across Tim's original post.  Isn't that how blogs *used* to work, right?  You'd read something in your feed reader that referenced someone else's blog/post and you stumbled upon them.  Liked it?  Usually, I grabbed a subscription to their feed and kept up on them.

I'm not one to pine for the 'good old days' (or, maybe I am?), but that little blog-to-blog transaction (about blogging!) struck me.

I read both of them and figured that it warranted comment or two here on my *own* blog.  I've been doing these daily diary entries on objects, experiences and occurrences in my life for the past few years after picking blogging back up 2010.  For a few years (2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016), I've been able to publish *something* everyday here on "Why I Oughta..." (which, is what I used to call this place?!?  That was after it being called "Rhodesschool" at the beginning.  In 2013 and 2014,  I was publishing content elsewhere - it was an election year after all - so, while I only had 154 and 94 posts in those years, I published more than 1000 posts in those years on the other outlet.  

Tim Brey's post ponders what happens to the so-called 'independent' web in the future.  With the big platforms (Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, etc) and more discreet, personal outlets (Instagram - and everyone's "Finsta", Snapchat, etc), sucking up all of the ad dollars, there isn't an economic reason for publishing independently, any longer.

I won­der what the Web will be like when we’re a cou­ple more gen­er­a­tions in? I’m pret­ty sure that as long as it re­mains easy to fill a lit­tle bit of the great names­pace with your words and pic­tures, peo­ple will. 

The great dan­ger is that the Web’s fu­ture is mall-like: No space re­al­ly pub­lic, no store­fronts but na­tion­al brands’, no vi­su­als com­posed by am­a­teurs, noth­ing that’s on of­fer just for its own sake, and for love.

Nothing that's on offer, just for its own sake, and for the love.  Interesting way to put it.

I've kept at it here with my own personal diary, not for the audience or the readership, nor for the money.  I took all of the ads off of here a few years back.  I was running Google AdSense ads across the blog here and the few bucks it was bringing in just didn't seem to be worth the real estate the ad units were taking up. 

Since, 2004, I've published almost 2400 posts here on my own, independent blog.  My own namespace.  All of them great?  Of course not. Plenty of clunkers.  But that's not the point.  I think that writing a post everyday is a great way to fight off writing atrophy.  The same way my muscles atrophy when I stopped playing Cardio Tennis every week, the little parts of my body that help me be a little creative and write can atrophy if they're not used.  So, I turn here each morning, to my diary.  That's really what this has become.  Is it out there on the independent web? Sure.  But, I'm writing on things that I'm interested in and not what I think will generate interest.  I'm writing so I remember where I was and what I was interested in at the time.  I'm writing here - on my own blog - and not on Facebook or on Medium or wherever - mostly for the love.  Oh...and the personal SEO isn't a bad byproduct, right?   Everyone finds value in different things and for me, it means taking the time to publish here.  Others?  They're better at Instagram or Facebook.   

Perhaps one day, I'll just stop.  Not sure when it will be.  But, for now, I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of having my own little corner of the web where I can write and create and post photos of my Ostrich Ferns and Disney pins.