I'm occasionally guilty of burying the lede, so here's the big announcement.  I'm taking my day to day blogging activities to Google Buzz, which has proven itself to be a wonderful place for discussion and commentary.  You can find my Buzz feed at this link, and for those of you who prefer to subscribe via RSS, there's a link for that, too.  This site, however, isn't going away.  And I hope the change, in fact, allows me to make it more interesting and valuable than it was before.

Wide Aperture and the Social Web

I've come to the conclusion that the value—for me, anyhow—in keeping a self-hosted site is different than it once was. That's because blogging is becoming an increasingly social activity. More and more, people are using sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr to share their day to day thoughts.  And smart people have suggested that the value of sharing stuff online is not always so much in the content itself, but in the way content comes to life in a good social network.  The network adds value to what would otherwise be a siloed product.  Petersen, at the link above, argues that it's somewhat devious for Web 2.0 sites to celebrate the fact that you own your content and can take it with you at any time.  After all, much of your "own stuff's" value comes from the network in which its embedded—and that you can't take with you easily when you leave a site.  He may have an interesting critique, but the upshot is that I recognize the worth of a good social network and plan to start utilizing one for sharing my day to day content.

There is, however, a value in keeping one's own site.  Social network feeds are ephemeral.  They're good for day to day discussions in a way that a non-destination site can never be, but they also have a short memory.  Your posts may be archived on Facebook or Twitter forever, but no one looks at them after the first week.  Here, I can exercise a bit more editorial judgment and preserve those posts and bits of writing that I think deserve to be featured in a permanent home, and especially those that stand to change and grow in value over time.  My list of organizational software tools for Mac is the latest example of such a post—it's something I hope will increase in usefulness the more people find it, comment on it, contribute to it, and so forth.

In fact, my site has been moving in this direction for awhile now.  The last couple redesigns took the format of the front page further and further from that of a blog toward something much more like a personal homepage.  So at this point, I'm merely making this shift yet more explicit.

Why Google Buzz?

In fact, I experimented with a number of services.  Twitter's character limit doesn't allow you to flesh out your thoughts, and—at least without the use of third-party tools—doesn't thread discussions.  Twitter fans may disagree, but I've found this discouraging to conversation.  It's much more suited to broadcasting your thoughts than conversing about them—not that there's anything wrong with that.  Facebook is much more about hanging out with friends virtually than it is about blogging or seeking input from people who don't already know exactly what you think.  I gave Tumblr a real trial run, but found that my social network there was slow to evolve.  Moreover, as with Twitter, Tumblr doesn't support threaded conversations by default.

However, I've had a fantastic experience with Buzz in its first month of existence.  The tools are still a bit rough around the edges, but developers there are actually conversing with users, fixing bugs, and adding features at a noticeable pace.  Moreover, the social environment has proven fantastic, with users saying the service reminds them of early Usenet or a quality, old-fashioned message board with social Web features.  So far, people also grow their social network there primarily by actually talking with strangers and adding interesting ones, which has led me to encounters with many more interesting folks than on networks where I primarily used a search tool to find people I already knew or whose sites I already read.  The chance online encounter is back en vogue there, and so far I like it.  In short, while some people are suggesting Buzz will flop, I think they're pessimists.  I really believe it is going to be a wonderful service.  I encourage folks to try it out, and if they like, to look me up there.  And if I'm wrong—if Buzz turns ugly or disintegrates—you can always come back here and tell me so on this site's comment threads.

Tags: google buzz | site update | social networking

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