5 years – full version

So it’s been 5 years since I started blogging and here’s my blurbs on blogging and the internet in general.

Before continuing, I found out that I did actually blog about this, but that’s okay because there’s other stuff I can add to the mix.

Personal vlogging is dead

Vlog is short for video log, as in to blog in video form.

I started blogging in 2004 which was one year before YouTube. The first YouTube video was posted April 23, 2005.

Vlogging had its heyday from ’06 to ’07 because it was new and interesting during that time. But now it’s nothing but a complete mess. Those who still vlog only do it for the money as YouTube partners. That’s not personal vlogging, that’s paying the bills. Big difference. And anyone who is not a YouTube partner who is vlogging wants nothing more than to be one so they too can earn money.

In addition, vlogging is predominantly YouTube-only territory. What that means is that if Google decides to drop YouTube (which they should as it’s burning a hole in their wallet 1,000 miles wide), vlogging will die completely. It’s only a matter of time, and it can’t happen too soon.

Vlogging has never been as good or as easy as blogging.

Wikis continue to be weird

The Wikipedia itself has been around since 2001. The first appearance of a Wikipedia link on this site happened in December 2004, so I know I’ve been using that site since at least that time.

Anybody can run a Wiki using this software. As such, there are wikis for everything, from software documentation to cartoons to tits.

So why are wikis weird?

First, nobody knows exactly what a wiki is supposed to be, other than it’s an uncomfortable mix of encyclopedia, online magazine and documentation source mashed into web site soup.

Second, editing a wiki is a pain in the ass. Oh sure, those who edit them all the time say it’s easy. Well, duh, they have experience with it. But to first-time wiki editors it’s very intimidating. And to those who say, “Pff.. formatting is easy!”, piss off. Seriously. We didn’t come all this way with WYSIWYG and rich text editing only to be shot straight back to manual coding.

Third, being a wiki editor can make you as crazy as a WoW addict. For example, people who are diehard Wikipedia fanatics take what they do way too seriously.

Blogs have always been a million times easier to install, configure, author and maintain compared to a wiki.

Forums and IRC continue to survive

No matter how much the internet tries to kill off forums, they continue to thrive. Over the years the major search engines have purposely pushed forum threads out of top spots for queries, even if they are relevant to what you’re looking for. But even with that in effect, people still use them by the ton. It is a communications medium that absolutely will not die, nor will it ever as long as there are monitors and keyboards.

A blog in a way is essentially a very basic forum. The article is the start of the thread, and the comments are the replies to that thread.

IRC has always been a very weird animal. It’s never been that reliable. Many IRC channels are outright hostile to new users. With large channels it’s impossible to keep up with the tidal wave of text that goes thru it. Yet it’s one of those things that has a very addictive quality to it. It’s not pretty and can be irritating to use, but the allure of real time conference chatting draws many.

I host a weekly live show where I use IRC. It has been an interesting experience so far because I have to juggle being the host and moderating the channel at the same time.

Recently I’ve had to educate myself on IRC administrative commands. It’s taken some time to figure that crap out, but I think I’m up to speed with it now.

So what does IRC have to do with blogging? Not a thing, save for the fact it’s earned the honor of being a staple of the internet, just like IRC.

Stupid things happening with blogs

Blogging is showing absolutely no signs of going away whatsoever, but there have been some things that unfortunately haven’t changed.

What I’m referring to are blogs suffer from the MySpace effect, i.e. ones which are full of useless crap.

Here’s a few things that really irritate the crap out of me:

• Ginormous header image. If it’s so big you have to scroll down just to read the content, it’s too frappin’ big.
• Overly long sidebar. If from the top of the site you have to hit PageDown more than twice just to read it all, it’s too long.
• Too much embedded Flash and scripting. If the browser goes “choppy” when scrolling up or down, there’s too much embedded crap.
• Anything that takes longer than five seconds to load. Self-explanatory.

Summed up, there’s still stuff on blogs that hearken back to the days of when people didn’t know anything about web design.. of which many still don’t. Oh, well.

Anyway, I’m glad to have 5 year’s worth of content here and hope to have many more.

Today is Thursday, July 29, 2010

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