Every now and then, I’m stricken with a bit of web-nostalgia. I think it’s pretty common for most of us who have had an online presence for quite awhile. Next year marks 12 years since I’ve been making webpages. It’s really hard to believe how much the internet, design, the world, and myself have changed in that period of time.
What I really do kind of miss is the days of the personal homepage. Back in the late 90′s there was no Social Networking. If you wanted to put content on the web, you made a website somewhere, usually on Geocities or space provided by your ISP (like AOL for instance). While it sucked for people who were terrified of diving into site-building, it was also kind of neat being one of the few out there with a website. Your own website provided a multitude of creative capabilities that social networking as it stands today, just does not compare.
Also there was the added benefit of anonymity. You could take up a pseudonym, rant all you wanted about the girl you dislike the most at school. Yet nobody knows who you’re talking about, and it doesn’t come back to bite you in the butt. I never really took up any pseudonyms until… fairly recently. Nor did I ever rant about people online publicly. But still, the benefit was there if I needed it. I mostly used my websites to talk about my dorky obsessions, share my fan art and talk about my life. None of it effected me offline, except the few friends that did see my sites.
Now you can find out everything about a person from their Facebook. Everyone’s on Facebook. Oddly enough, I post more blog entries on my LJ (and hopefully soon, here) than I post Facebook status updates. Yet, there’s far more information about me on my personal websites, but their a lot harder to find. I like it this way. I think I really keep my Facebook to keep in touch with my non-web-savvy friends and relatives. This unfortunately boils down to just about everyone I know IRL.
Sadly, a lot of websites out there just went forgotten and abandoned. Today, there’s far fewer people that run and maintain personal websites. It’s kind of sad. But the people that do maintain them these days tend to really know what they’re doing and they’re awesome. This means there’s a lot less copycatting going on than there was 5-10 years ago. I’d find copycats twice a month at least back when I primarily used sweet-essence.net as my domain.
I don’t think I can or will move on to just a social networking account (or twelve). I like the ability to fully and entirely manipulate the way everything looks and feels. You just can’t do that with other places. Sure, you can make your (now dying) Myspace profile look all shiny and snazzy. But no matter what you do, it will still look like Myspace!
I for one, definitely will not ever abandon my own unique spot on the web just for me, be it a domain or just a site hosted somewhere.
How about you? What are your thoughts on this?
I have the same feeling as you. Anymore, domains and websites are just disappearing. You really don’t see any good sites anywhere. Most social networks are around Facebook. I like my journal or blog. I like having a place to go to and rant about things. It is my place where no one can find me. My place to call home on the web.
Comment by Medli — October 20th, 2010 @ 8:33 pm
I love having my own space on the web. I have a Facebook, but I rarely get on it. I’m on my sites weekly (if not daily sometimes) though.
Comment by Todd — October 20th, 2010 @ 11:46 pm