For nine years, my “personal website” has been a page on Blogger.com. Since then it served me well, diligently humming along even when my yearly post count dwindled. On a whole, I think Blogger offers a very good service, and I thank them for providing that space to me for the Internet equivalent of a century’s worth of time.
But all good things come to an end, and I’ve been contemplating a move off of Blogger since the beginning of this year. Most of the reasons have nothing to do with the service at all, but I still have a few Blogger-related gripes (I said they were very good, not perfect).
The biggest deciding factor was how it affected my virtual appearance. I’ve thought about it some, and I’ve come to the conclusion that in the non anonymous spaces of the Internet, first impressions matter even more than they do in real life. Imagine going into a job interview dressed in an unwashed T-shirt and a ratty pair of jeans. If the job is at a big white collar firm, you probably have a snowball’s chance in hell of landing the job, based solely on how you dressed. On the other hand, if the interview is at a start-up, or some developer led small business, it is possible your interviewers will be more interested in what you can do than how you look (though in this scenario, your wardrobe is probably perfect.) The point is, in the real world there are different ways to make a first impression on someone. Looking like a slob may not help, but it won’t always hurt.
When we’re online, we are judged not by our clothes or our grooming habits, but on the appearance of our online profile. And just like our physical appearance, we can control most aspects of how our profile looks, in order to create an image we show to others. Let’s imagine that you are at a professinal conference, and you meet some new people. Later that night, they visit your website/blog that happens to have “blogspot” or “wordpress” in the URL. Your acquaintance from the big white collar firm is going to dismiss you immediately. After all, you don’t have a custom domain name, so she knows you won’t spend even a little bit of money to help yourself stand out from the crowd. And unless you’ve made massive tweaks to the standard blog layout, she can safely assume that you didn’t spend much time on making the site look and behave the way you want. In other words, it doesn’t look like you care about your appearance, and she will find it hard to take you seriously as a result . You’re wearing the Internet equivalent of a shirt with a stain and a hole in it.
But what about the other fellow you chatted with? The startup founder? His reaction will be the same, but for different reasons. It will be obvious to him that you didn’t roll your own blog, and he will start to wonder why. Is it because you’re not good with web design? Or was the backend work that you couldn’t do? Or maybe you’ve spent decades working on database software, and you don’t feel like you need to know the in and outs of CSS in order to prove your mettle (in which case the founder may consider you inflexible). Whatever the truth may be, it will be hard for him not to make a snap judgement.
I don’t believe in the idea of making yourself into a “brand”, but I do see how something as simple as grabbing a domain and installing Wordpress yourself on a dedicated host can improve you appearance.
Another reason for leaving Blogger is my desire to have better control over my content. Blogging platforms aren’t guaranteed to stick around forever (just look at Posterous), and Google in particular has a nasty habit of closing down beloved services without notice. I have no idea how long Blogger will be around for (its lifespan is already impressive), but I don’t want to find myself scrambling to retrieve all my old content before it vanishes. The way this site is built, I will always have the content with me, no matter where or how it is hosted. I also find it easier to add features and change the look of the site when I know exactly how it works.
On that note, my last reason for moving is that the act of blogging now becomes a learning experience. I have a lot to do around here, and by getting it done I hope to gain some new and valuable skills. I think that alone is as good a reason as any.