I [Still] Blog Therefore I [Still] Am

To break my own languishing of writing here (to which nobody notices), I reach for the bloggers oldest topic, blogging about blogging. Right? And so I reach back, way back, to my own Pre-Cambrian blogging era, the first post, to which, true to form, I pun[t] on the descriptive title for what I think might be a clever play on words.

And frankly, because my own site, has everything written here neatly (well ignore the dusty corners, and the bent nails) organized by time, in one click I can dial back to my first blogged words. These words here shall not be the last.

I missed out much of the DS106 Radio Summer Camp even because of previously made plans for a family vacation. I did manage from the road to crash in on the Jim Groom closing plenary panel, spun in Groomian vibrance as “Blog or Die.” It was not just a bunch of old grey bloggers wringing their hands (but good to see folks like Tom Woodward, Christina Hendricks, Tim Clark, et al), but I leave it to you to decide/enjoy/cringe —the recording is available along with everything else from summer camp week.

One thing I thought I said was something like, I can’t explain it, but it’s the writing out loud that makes me feel best, the part of the process before I click “Publish”, not what happens after. Anything after is bonus.

To show a lack of “back in the day” nostalgia I deliberately left out a reference to the 2010 Northern Voice Blogs Are dead session (old blog post full of dead links) I was part of with Chris Lott and Brian Lamb.

Yet, I glance back at those times we were posting multiple times a day, or banging out posts right after a conference session. My reaction time now is on the scale of weeks? Months? Again, nobody counts.

I’ve enjoyed a rather long series of mastodon volleys with George Station and Kate Bowles, who share different experiences, cultures, they find in Bluesky vs Mastodon.

I can’t even capture it here, especially since I’ve decided I don’t want more than one social media space. My colleagues, who I respect (and read their blogs long ago), are looking much in these spaces for connection, community, conversation, and also like many of us, in the post twitter diaspora blues.

And while I put into some kind of spoken poetry my call to Get Federated I have few expectations that the hurdle of entry in Mastodon versus the bird like familiarity of the Blue Sky interface and the ease of Threading if you are already aboard Instagram, can be overcome. I’ve resigned myself to the disaggregated nature of the net, which it always was. It’s going to be many places. At this point, I don’t feel right putting my chips in another company owned tent.

I resolve to be MO (back end of FOMO).

It does seem though that the Mike Caulfield’s brilliant essay about the stream and garden in 2024 shows big giant torrents streams, and maybe just a few islands of small (web) gardens, not that it was never a choice that was one or the other. But the gardening is where I feel best.

Still, I remain convinced of the value of tossing out my own bits right here. The same network effects of them cast out like small radio signals, or seeds of potential serendipity, still happen. Just as recently as this:

Amazing Still Happens. The Incalculable Odds of Clicking My Way Back to Phenix

And a followup mastodon post tagged #smallweb by a writer named Mike Grindle I never knew before, sent me spinning on this unprobable connection. Mike came back at this as a sign of the value of this act, in his post telling his side of the story, The Blogosphere Lives!

An image in a post from 2016 ended up in the eyes of its creator in 2024 via a share on a relatively tiny platform from a guy who lives across the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, no algorithm – only humans – played any part. Alan later wrote about the experience in a post, and it sounds like he and Jeffrey (who may also be writing about this soon) are now in regular contact via email.

To me, it shows what happens when you regularly write, publish, share and hyperlink into the void that is the web: the void speaks back.

https://mikegrindle.com/posts/blogosphere

While these kind of amazing stories (someone should collect them!) perhaps do not need the blogosphere, I think putting out your stuff on a link that will live as ling as you do or care to make them live, is a stronger spark to create that serendipity.

And as much as many pin the future on AI powered search, the thing I like about the old faulty web search is, that sometimes, you get results you were not really looking for, but they turn out to be interesting, There is something to some slop in results. I’m happy to sift the river for a fleck of gold.

For social media spaces, I am less looking for being caught up in conversations and debate, I am looking for them to serve me the links outward to people, sites, stories, I would not find otherwise. I am seeking the interesting outliers, not the trends. The unexpected, the novel, the new, the heart and pulse of the #smallweb not the Big Mall.

Maybe I should write a blog post.

Or many. It’s time to shake the dust off.

Not dead yet.

Blog or die? I choose blog. Always.

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Featured Image: A 100% Non-Generative image. Mine. Shared into the public domain.