Posts Tagged ‘MySpace’

Under my Control

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

So I’ve had a long, strange journey toward independence. From Livejournal to MySpace to Livejournal to Facebook, and now to Wordpress. Oddly enough, even though I’ve been building websites and related content for ten years, I’ve never owned my own domain name or hosted my own site until now.

It’s about time.

So, this past weekend, I took some time to finally do something I’ve been dreading: I migrated all my old posts (with comments) from Livejournal, MySpace and Facebook over to my own Wordpress installation. It’s nice to finally have my own CMS, so I can share, back up, control, and amass my own content without having to deal with restrictions and lack of stable APIs from service-providers (I’m looking at you, MySpace). It’ll also be nice not to have to host my shared images on MobileMe, which has been a minor pain in the ass for years.

But, for me, syndication has been the biggest goal. To put my words in one place and one place only, and have that content be visible from multiple other places via RSS and other means. Interoperability (like with Flickr and Facebook) should be easy and as non-redundant as possible. Facebook’s “import from blog” function is a joke.

Anyhow, step number one was to make sure my old content was safe and organized.
Step two will be to consolidate the features and functions I’d like to present on the blog.
Step three will be to create my own theme, designed from the ground up.

So, if you’re reading this, stay tuned. You’re looking at the blank slate (albeit, with lots of prior content). The design and functionality should change relatively quickly.

breeding disinterest

Friday, April 18th, 2008

Facebook and MySpace are breeding disinterest, at least for me. Various other sites do it, and what they all do is pretty obvious and easily ignored…I just get sick of being bombarded, so I stop looking in those places.

I’m mostly talking about the “You have 1 Secret Admirer” type of bullshit that appears on nine out of ten pages on Facebook and MySpace. The latest one blends in perfectly with the rest of my stuff, no indication that it’s just bullshit linkbait, and it reads “You’ve received new posts from your friends. Click here to view your unread posts.” I mean, I understand bombardment has been a fact of the advertising world for time immemorial, but for the most part, it didn’t pretend to be something that it wasn’t. These days, companies and advertising agencies are trying everything they can think of to dupe you into clicking their links and adding their applications. It’s not a new problem, but jumpin’ jesus on a pogo stick I’m getting tired of having to avoid the disguised landmines.

I don’t have much more to say, I just wanted to bitch. I go to a site to read things about my friends and exchange little notes with them. I can deal with advertisements, but I really don’t want to have to always be on my guard to make sure the data I’m seeing is valid.