PhotoDude.com

The Daily Whim

The Daily Whim

Fair and Unbalanced

Fri. Jul 16, 2010

A Blog Decade

I bought this domain in 1996, after my experience putting the 1996 Olympics on the web made it clear to me that this medium had a real future. It had enabled me to “publish” text and photos of an Olympic event I had attended just the previous day, which could then be viewed by anyone with an Internet connection. At that time, this seemed just shy of miraculous to me.

But it would be another four years before I discovered Blogger (which served about 19,000 blogs back then), created an account, and added that output to this domain. July 16, 2000.

Ten years ago today.

So much has changed during the past ten years, in the world, in my life, and at this domain. Ten years ago I made my income working in a photo studio each day, not sitting in my home doing web design. I did not yet own a digital camera, never mind a digital SLR. I could fly without having my shoes searched. Heck, ten years ago I was still technically single (though I was living with the woman I would marry in 2002).

Ten years ago the number of blogs was well under 100,000 and today it’s well into the tens of millions. Not to mention Facebook, twitter, and a host of other “social applications.” Ten years ago, a blog with comments was about the only “social application” around.

And things have certainly changed here at this domain over the past decade. In early 2000 this site was hand coded, then augmented by Blogger, then Greymatter, Movable Type, and finally Textpattern for the past six years (though I’ve managed to import content into the database going all the way back to January, 2001, 6 months after I started blogging). It all started as a whim, and so it remains. Through numerous redesigns there have been periods where posting was quite prolific, and more recently some fallow periods.

But I think it’s time to change that recent history. Thus this slight redesign and major content restructuring. One of the more recent trends in blogging has been sites built using services like tumblr and Posterous. That’s going to be the basic approach here, a mix of articles, tweets, quotes, links, photos and videos. Except I’m doing it with Textpattern, using the asv_tumblelog plug-in. And if you use twitter, you can now follow @dailywhim for a feed of the postings here (using the arc_twitter plug-in).

Who knows what the next ten years might bring?

9 Comments below
Published 01:16AM, Fri, Jul 16 2010 
Category:  


Peanut Gallery

1  Jim wrote:

Happy birthday, Photodude.com

Comment by Jim · 07/16/10 12:35 PM
2  John wrote:

Was wonderin’ where you’d been… Happy Blogday!

Comment by John · 07/16/10 01:21 PM
3  Reid wrote:

Thanks Jim & John. I hope to be a more frequent presence here. I think maybe I took a subconcious break from this place over the past year or so. I believe there were a mere five posts this year, prior to this new layout. I made twice that many just to test out this new design over the past couple of weeks.

Hoping to continue that trend…

Comment by Reid · 07/16/10 02:33 PM
4  Jim wrote:

My posting veracity has been similar. I may start writing more too. What the hell, right?

Comment by Jim · 07/16/10 03:39 PM
5  Reid wrote:

I think part of my problem is that I got somewhat locked into the political/news commentary, and then got to the point I just didn’t want to talk about that any more because it usually digusted me so much.

I got away from simple linking to Kool Thangs, quotes, photos, and various oddities. I do need to write more, about various topics, but I needed to loosen up my whole attitude towards this now codified thing we’ve come to call “blogging.”

And a ten year anniverary seemed the appropriate time to shake things out.

Comment by Reid · 07/16/10 05:22 PM
6  elburro wrote:

I like the new look. It’s like one-stop shopping for everything P-dude. It’s great. I might have to try that plug-in. If nothing more, it will provide hours of entertainment. If it would create content I’d like it even better. Haven’t solved that riddle yet.

I find myself stifled on Facebook. Without really trying I’ve got tons of family, acquaintances, high school and college friends cluttering up my newsfeed. To make it worse, ninety percent of them have the impression that I’m “normal”. I’ve got nieces and nephews “boy was I drunk last night LOL”. I’ve got religious and political wars going on between groups of them. The rare times I go there I kind of cringe and try to pretend I’m not there.

Comment by elburro · 07/16/10 09:01 PM
7  DanS. wrote:

I knew if I kept checking in here during your fallow periods that you’d come back.

I, for one, have always looked forward to reading your posts.

Glad to see you!

Comment by DanS. · 07/17/10 12:29 PM
8  Evelyn in Iowa City wrote:

Happy 10th Blogday, Reid! I started as a reader of yours and Jim’s during one of your earliest ‘Photoshop Tennis’ tournaments, in 2002. Not only do I respect and enjoy your writing, but your indescribably-good photography as well. I’m glad you are back!

Comment by Evelyn in Iowa City · 07/17/10 04:15 PM
9  Reid wrote:

Thanks Evelyn, but now I have to convince Jim I didn’t pay you to say that. I’ve spent years twisting the knife over his site’s lack of archives, particularly those Photoshop Tennis pages.

Comment by Reid · 07/20/10 11:45 PM
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