I’ve been on the web for years. I started this blog back in 2005, though before that I messed around with hand-coded sites. Reading Justin Cox’s post from early 2025, “Let’s Make The Internet Personal Again” reminded me of those days. The internet was a quirky place, with sites ranging from the cerebral to the downright weird, ie: Dancing Hamster.
In his post, Mr. Cox writes about Lost and its impact on the blogosphere. Though I didn’t get into Lost, I did have my sets of interests and found my own focused sites.
On a 2023 post, “The End of Centralized Platforms is Over“, he states:
You put the distribution into the hands of a company without your interest in mind.
I deeply agree with this point. Build your own site, build your own community. Even in the heyday of the platformed web, I promoted the notion of using social media sites to drive people towards YOUR site. Don’t let a third party control your community! I can point to Twitter and YouTube, amongst others, who seemingly capriciously de-platforming people, people who depended on that community for a living. They were left in professional limbo. A benefit of pointing people to your website, to your email list is that if you’re kicked off a platform, or that platform fails/goes out of business, your community can still find you, can still maintain that connection.
Personally, I’m going through a minor struggle. Should I hand-code my main site (like this page of mine), should I focus on THIS site (which is WordPress)? Or some other option (Joomla?)
What are your thoughts? Do you focus on a single platform? Do you maintain a website/blog? I would love to hear your thoughts.
