How we got here … blog-wise

Posted on | July 9, 2009 | No Comments

I’ve been a blogger for 6 or 7 years now, in one way or another. Back when I was in TV, I used to blog a lot more than I do now. Now that I’m working in online media, I have less appetite for blogging. I spend so much time at work on the computer, I don’t want to come home and write for fun. Plus with Twitter and Facebook now, I can communicate what’s on mind more quickly and efficiently, reaching more people, than I could with my own blogs.

Things have changed quite a bit, haven’t they?

I decided, though, I needed to reclaim some online presence for myself — my own space for my own brand, such as it is. I’ve never been an artist or a programmer. I’m a content guy; I can write. I wanted some place that I could publish a stream of all my posts everywhere else, as well as a place I could write longer-form material (like this post).

There’s something new out there called microblogs (actually, Twitter is a microblog at 140 characters a post). But I’m talking about something a bit more robust – specifically competing services Tumblr and Posterous. Both are admirable and interesting attempts to create platforms for blogging and social networking. But neither one did what I wanted to do. My Tumblr page replicates some of the experience you’re getting on this site, but I found less flexibility and fewer features. My Posterous page is more simple. Posterous is all about making it easy for you to post something to the site, no matter what kind of device you’re using, but it’s not as easy to aggregate outside content on your Posterous page.

So I’m back to an old friend Wordpress. I’m aggregating a life-stream of what I post in the middle column, via my Friendfeed. That Friendfeed stream incorporates what I post on my Facebook and Twitter accounts and the social-bookmarking site Delicious. The bookmarks are great for clipping interesting stories I find on the web, and saving them to read at a later time.

I’m an online guy. I need an online space where the content is current and useful, and where I can learn and experiment with design and code, beyond what I know how to do now. Here’s that site. Your feedback is always welcome here. Post a comment, or send me an e-mail at chipmahaney@gmail.com.