Consolidating My Online Platforms
This website, loudpoet.com, has existed across a variety of platforms over the years, first at Geocities as the home of the reading series I founded that inspired the loudpoet name, a little bit louder (now louderARTS), then later as my personal site (pictured, via the Wayback Machine) when I left the series behind in 2002.
A year later, I launched my first blog at the pre-Google Blogger under loudpoet.blogspot.com, and that site is still live, though all of its content has been imported here, a final post on January 1, 2008 noting that I had relaunched loudpoet.com to “once again be Command Central for all things Guy: Writer.”
Ah, so young and naive!
That was two employers, five job descriptions and what feels like ten lifetimes ago in digital years. In the real world, Barack Obama had won me over, his historic run for President just barely starting to look like he had a shot, and my blogging was at its political peak.
Over the years, this site has been part laboratory, part sounding board, with occasional flashes of intense focus, as in its Comic Book Commentary phase and, more recently, my focus on Marketing and Publishing. New platforms came and went (remember Vox? Storytlr?), and I tried out a bunch of them to varying degrees, but at the end of the day, this site has remained my hub, Command Central, if not specifically for the “Guy: Writer” I had in mind at the time.
A few weeks back, I randomly happened to check out Clay Shirky’s blog and website, and was impressed by its… um, let’s call it simplicity. Most blogging gurus would rip the basic design to shreds and scoff at his sporadic updating, yet few of them have the reach, presence, or credibility Shirky does. (And I say that as someone who’s neither a fan of Shirky nor “gurus” of any kind.)
I’ll never be a daily blogger, and have no interest in it, but it’s certainly not for lack of things to say, as my 13,000+ tweets and 40+ articles for Digital Book World would arguably prove. Twitter’s instability is legendary, though, not to mention its ephemerality, and Tumblr reminded everyone of the importance of owning their own platform earlier this week when it crashed hard and is still recovering as I write this.
Here, on my self-hosted WordPress blog. The site that has turned up as the number one search for “Guy LeCharles Gonzalez” for several years thanks to its 1690 posts and counting.
Earlier this year, I consolidated my old Vox blog into my rarely used Posterous blog, and today imported all 139 of those posts here under the Personal category. Those sites, and others along the way, including Tumblr, were always personal outposts for content that didn’t fit the focus du jour of loudpoet.com — Vox in the comics phase; Posterous most recently. They join many other short-lived Blogspot and WordPress experiments, returning to Command Central where they belong.
The plan for 2011, or at least part of it, will likely include continued defragging of my online presence and repositioning this site to once again be Command Central: All Things Guy — writer, poet, marketer, publisher, optimist, malcontent — no matter what new interests and passions the new year may bring my way. (Hello, transmedia!)
The first step is this new theme, The Erudite, from Soma Design, which I think puts the focus squarely on the content where it belongs, shifting the extraneous “marketing” stuff down into the footer.
So far, several people have said they liked it, while a few complained the serif font makes it difficult to read.
What say you?
Discover more from As in guillotine...
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
For what it’s worth, I think fonts with serifs are easier to read.
I agree, which is one of the reasons why this theme appealed to me. Thanks!
crisp. elegant. simple. brilliant.
Thanks, Juan!
It’s gorgeous. –You know, I redesigned my blog to be tremendously simpler not long ago for similar reasons. ^_^