My first article after moving this blog from JoeUser to here proclaimed, “Welcome to the new blog, same as the old blog,” but it’s not the same blog, is it? The articles are shorter, more facetious, less often updated, and (almost counter-intuitively) far less personal.

I believe it all comes down to the difference between being out here on my own versus the community atmosphere of the hosted blog. As part of the community, I knew whatever I wrote would be read and commented on. While intellectually I know I get more page views here on my website, it lacks that feel and knowing. Here, I’m more likely to blog something shorter, which I’d have felt self-conscious about over there. By the same token, perhaps I put more effort into creating longer form works, expecting greater scrutiny over there.

The same goes for updating. A blog community almost guarantees a level of readership. Knowing absolutely that a readership was regularly looking in, compelled me to update more often, to put mental energy into looking for and creating article topics to keep up the flow that sustained the readership. Without that tangible feel of a dedicated readership, the pressure to maintain my performance is missing.

I call the less personal nature of this version of my blog counter-intuitive because I’d imagine that having a sense of being adrift, being out here alone, without people looking at me, would cause me to loosen up and say things I might not if I knew certain people were watching. That hasn’t been the case. I think perhaps the community gives a false feeling that you know who is looking, as if that blog weren’t as open to the whole world as this one is. You focus down onto the group you see and forget the greater mass that you don’t. Here, there is no-one to focus on, so the greater unknown surges to the forefront of perception and consequently brings inhibition. “Hmmm, I wonder just who might read this?” In the small community, you get the false sense you know who will be reading.

Along with the community inspired delusion you know who will be reading comes the delusion you know what they will be thinking. If you know your friends (and nemeses), you have a pretty good idea how they will react to certain things. You can fool yourself into mentally gauging their reactions, thinking you know how far you can go and when to pull back. With having a stand-alone blog, with absolutely no idea who your readers are or how they might react, comes the realization you don’t know what is out of line, no idea when someone might become hurt or outraged by what you write, no imagining you know how far is just far enough or way over the line.

What it all amounts to is, no, this isn’t the same blog. In some ways it is like starting from scratch. I have to feel my way around, and master this beastie all over again.

Posted: May 25th, 2008 under Blogging.
Comments: 4

Okay, so here’s my new blog. *SIGH*

I soooo did not want to do this. But, my original blog site, JoeUser, has made such drastic (and extremely ill advised) changes that I can no longer consider it a blog site. It’s being transformed into the social networking component of the software company’s new site-plex. JoeUser is now, in a word, garbage.

So, here I am, unwillingly thrust out into the cold, unforgiving blogsphere, naked and alone. That’s the way it feels, going from the safety of a community, where I could mingle and disappear into the fleshy mass of “the many,” to standing out here all by myself, a one man band with nowhere to hide and no shuffle to get lost into should I so desire. I should have done this years ago, but there is something comforting about the warmth of the crowd.

For now, please excuse the design of this blog.. I grabbed a pre-made template off the web just to get something up and return to blogging again. The only alteration I’ve made so far is adding the purple (my favorite color) gradients to the top and bottom. I’m currently designing and populating other sites and hadn’t anticipated having to restart my own blog from scratch. Over time, I’ll slowly morph this into something almost entirely different, but for now I have to put this up and get moving again before too much inertia sets in.

Except for the occasional repost or the rare thing related strictly to that community, my old blog is dead. This is where you should be looking for me.

 
(P.S. The 300+ blog articles I previously wrote are, for the time being, still at the old site and can be read there.)

Posted: March 4th, 2008 under Blogging, Welcome.
Comments: none