From dcfb172704f3afb68a30425029ec834be2883274 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: bt Date: Sat, 8 Jun 2024 13:22:19 -0400 Subject: More content porting, on-going markdown changes for lowdown support --- build/self-hosted-blogs/index.html | 41 +++++++++++++++++++++++++------------- 1 file changed, 27 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-) (limited to 'build/self-hosted-blogs/index.html') diff --git a/build/self-hosted-blogs/index.html b/build/self-hosted-blogs/index.html index aee2643..738ae81 100644 --- a/build/self-hosted-blogs/index.html +++ b/build/self-hosted-blogs/index.html @@ -1,42 +1,55 @@ - + What Happened to Self-Hosted Blogs? - - + + +
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What Happened to Self-Hosted Blogs?

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What Happened to Self-Hosted Blogs?

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2018-10-18

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I remember a time on the internet1 when everyone and their grandmother was running a personal blog. And I mean personal - not hosted on some side platform or a tacked-on addition to the rest of their website.

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I remember a time on the internet1 when everyone and their grandmother was running a personal blog. And I mean personal - not hosted on some side platform or a tacked-on addition to the rest of their website.

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Nowadays companies and individuals alike use platforms like Medium to host and promote all of their articles, essays and case studies. I understand the draw, and can even list out the positives:

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  1. A large community already exists under the Medium brand
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  2. It's easy to promote your own work and follow others
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  3. It’s easy to promote your own work and follow others
  4. The platform is fairly easy to setup and implement
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Unfortunately this has had a pretty severe impact on the blogging community as a whole - no one controls their own blogs anymore. I remember when finding a new blog was an interesting and fun experience:

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These custom self-hosted blogs inspired other developers and designers to create their own blogs or tweak current ones. In a way it was a small factor in pushing what we could do on the web further and further, as designers engaged in friendly competition trying to one-up each others' creations.

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I also believe this inspired people to write better content instead of opting for clickbait garbage in order to get "featured" or boosted promotion on the main blogging platform. But I don't even think that's the worst to come of this mass-migration to a singular blogging platform.

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All2 blogs look identical now. I'm not sure if that was Medium's intention, but either way I personally think it's horrible. The individual personality of most design and development blogs has been completely stripped away.

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Maybe I'm just a salty designer with a narrow-minded, pessimistic view on where our blogging communities seem to be heading - or maybe I just have higher standards.

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Refs

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1 the design world of the internet
 -2 by "All" I mean the majority

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These custom self-hosted blogs inspired other developers and designers to create their own blogs or tweak current ones. In a way it was a small factor in pushing what we could do on the web further and further, as designers engaged in friendly competition trying to one-up each others’ creations.

+ +

I also believe this inspired people to write better content instead of opting for clickbait garbage in order to get “featured” or boosted promotion on the main blogging platform. But I don’t even think that’s the worst to come of this mass-migration to a singular blogging platform.

+ +

All2 blogs look identical now. I’m not sure if that was Medium’s intention, but either way I personally think it’s horrible. The individual personality of most design and development blogs has been completely stripped away.

+ +

Maybe I’m just a salty designer with a narrow-minded, pessimistic view on where our blogging communities seem to be heading - or maybe I just have higher standards.

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Refs

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1 the design world of the internet +2 by “All” I mean the majority