From e417a818e207a6cca6e2f3c471611673ab836a62 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Bradley Taunt Date: Sat, 25 May 2024 16:14:03 -0400 Subject: Initial commit for Jekyll testing and conversion, updated --- _posts/2018-10-18-self-hosted-blogs.md | 32 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 32 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _posts/2018-10-18-self-hosted-blogs.md (limited to '_posts/2018-10-18-self-hosted-blogs.md') diff --git a/_posts/2018-10-18-self-hosted-blogs.md b/_posts/2018-10-18-self-hosted-blogs.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd117da --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2018-10-18-self-hosted-blogs.md @@ -0,0 +1,32 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "What Happened to Self-Hosted Blogs?" +date: 2018-10-18 +--- + + +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. + +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: + +1. A large community already exists under the Medium brand +2. It's easy to promote your own work and follow others +3. The platform is fairly easy to setup and implement + +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: + +- how did they decide to layout the page design? +- what typefaces have they decided to use? +- what back-end are they using? +- how does it look and feel on mobile? + +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. + +1 the design world of the internet
 +2 by "All" I mean the majority -- cgit v1.2.3-54-g00ecf