I’ve been blogging here for well over seven years now. My writing style has evolved, regular themes and subjects have emerged and the peripheral social media tools that I use have changed on a fairly regular basis. At one point, Hydragenic represented my entire web presence and was the hub of my social life – both online and off. Nowadays, if you want to get the full picture, you have to follow my activities and output across a variety of different sites.
Arguably, I do a better job of expressing myself via Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr than I do on my own website these days. That’s part of a broader phenomenon and I note that things are similar for many of the people who inspired me to start blogging in the first place, as well as many people who started blogging at the same time as me. It’s not a bad thing. Indeed, it’s healthy. It’s part of the ongoing evolution of the way in which we use these fascinating social tools.
This year in particular, I’ve wondered on several occasions what exactly Hydragenic (dot com) is “for”. Initially an eclectic grab-bag of writing on any subject that interested me, it became more focused a couple of years ago. I decided to streamline it and focus on three of my major interests: music, identity and creativity. The latter theme still allowed me to write my own “creative” pieces, but I felt that I wanted a less scattergun and more honed approach.
In fact, what’s happened is that I’ve become a terrible blogger, for the best of reasons. I’ve taken that brief much further than I expected. I started collaborating with other people and found that I got much more of a buzz out of helping them to use blogging and social media tools than I did out of using these tools myself. Hydragenic started to feel a bit like the past, rather than either the present or the future. And then I realised… I’ve got a classic case of the Seven-Year Itch.
Like the frumpy wife who has let herself go, or the complacent husband who no longer sees why he has to make an effort, Hydragenic (dot com) has become neglected and unattractive. A little part of me cringes every time I look at it. Black and red are still my favourite colours (I sit here at my desk dressed head-to-toe in both), but the “Brazilian” design – the thin strip down the middle – has long passed its sell-by date. This site doesn’t look anything like “me” any more.
The extent of my unfaithfulness only really dawned on me a couple of weeks ago, when I realised that the website stats that I check on a daily basis are not my own. I know some people think that stats are passé and care not one jot about them, but I’m always fascinated by referrers and search terms. (Quantity of hits has never been my priority, I’m much more interested in connections and relevance.) And now I don’t care enough even to look.
So, it’s time to pay a bit of attention to this failing marriage, to see whether it can be saved or whether divorce is inevitable. A redesign, soon (-ish…). A bit of focus on purpose, means and method. The tricky question of whether there’s any need to continue. Maybe less concern on my part about “quality” and repetition. Keep the intensity, but bring back some of the playfulness. Maybe be a bit more open. As I used to say: what doesn’t destroy me…
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Perhaps a combination website, like a lifestream type thing? (www.gordonmclean.co.uk/lifestream.php is my WIP of mine).
Never easy though, with so many ways to ‘get out there’, I’ve stopped worrying about which I use and just do what I feel is right at the time, so have a mish mash of Twitter, Tumblr, delicious links, Flickr photos and blog posts. Works for me.
Very WIP – that link 404s for me at the moment
Personally I’m not a fan of republishing content, e.g. Twitter updates in blog sidebars. That’s why I stopped pushing Delicious links onto this site a while back. (Then when Tumblr came along, I stopped using Delicious altogether – but that’s another story.) I do have a FriendFeed, for anyone who likes that kind of thing.
But as far as the psychology of the web goes, I think there’s a difference between a site based on a domain you own with a CMS you’ve installed (and control) yourself, as opposed to a third-party service. The analogy that I use is that your website is like your home and all the other sites and services are the cafés and bars that you hang out in.
I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t like my online home any more. I don’t feel like spending time here and that’s become a rather unsettling feeling. I miss the things that I used to do here when I enjoyed it more. To continue the analogy – which maybe works better than the marriage one I used in the post above – the peeling wallpaper is depressing and I’d rather be elsewhere.
All fixable, of course. Renovate, or move on. The first thing is to identify and acknowledge the problem, which is where I am right now.
You might care to know that the resilience of this design is what helped me break my once-constant search for the perfect design. I thought, “Well, Hg’s a spry fellow, and is so mature he realizes that he’s got something that works, that gets out of the way of the writing. I need to work on something like that.” I still think it works, but then again, I also know where you’re coming from.
As long as you’re writing, though, I don’t much care where I find it so long as I do.
Too kind, Daniel. There are elements that I still like about this design – the way the posts themselves are presented in particular. The banner logo annoys me immensely at the moment and maybe the red is a little too bright for my tastes these days. I think I’d like a sidebar back too.
The thing that I used to love that I now dislike the most about the design is the white background. I did a temporary fix for that a while back with the skull and crossbones image, but then got bored with that, tried another image that I liked for a few weeks and then didn’t, and so on.
In the same way that you’ve used me as a reference point, I keep casting my eyes over Troubled Diva, which – apart from some fairly subtle sidebar noodling and the introduction of the grey “info bars” at the top – has remained constant for the seven-plus years I’ve been reading it.
But it’s no good, I want a change.
Good to see you Hg. Hope you had an uneventful journey home. Interested to see what you do about the blog. If the banner graphic was a garment I’d say it makes your bum look big. That is all!
Ah… from marriage to decor to ill-fitting clothes. Possibly the best analogy yet. (Good to see you too.)