Are Personal Home Pages and Blogs Dying?

That’s funny, because last week I created my own ‘Social Me’ page, without knowing your were making one as well.

So if you’re looking for oli kenobi, I’m there: http://www.olikenobi.com

The issue of having several profiles on the various popular social networking sites has become increasingly intense. I am all about having your OWN, personal space on the web. I do agree with Zeldman. I believe however that having your own personal website sets you apart from the average user. It creates a certain “barrier of entry”. The increased functionality of popular social networking sites does two things. One, it intimidates the average computer literate individual to pursue building their own website; and Two, the functionality provided simply has them hooked. Why bother to learn HTML and or a CMS? We live in a world where increasing numbers of people want to do as little thinking as possible, and the social networking sites do just the trick. I would like to leave by saying that there people are there for the taking, Build your own space and promote it well and ethically on these social applications.

I think I am the best example of what you are talking about. You can say that I am very active on-line. http://www.brijux.com is my 3rd website. But I don’t know any ideas to make it productive. I am doing my masters in Embedded Software engineering.

Chris, can you please suggest me something productive that I can do with my website?

Your right Chris I have so many accounts on different pages I often forget that I have them and when I do to sign up again for a page it says already using email. this is a great way to archive all of my pages or accounts in a safe public place. so I can tell people my page is here and they can access all of my other online content

I feel like nothing in my life is really special or entertaining enough to document on a personal site… Next year I’m going to college for Classical Guitar, maybe then I’ll keep a blog. For now, everything in my life is ordinary and boring. Maybe I just haven’t embraced all of the internet’s ability yet :S

I hear what you’re saying but I think there’s a whole lot of overkill going on with the web, social networks, etc. I personally long for the cheesy good ol’ days of the web.

I feel like personal blogging and twitter will continue to mesh until the lines are very blurry…

My 1st personal site was in 1996, on AOL. ;p We’ve come a long way!

I love your new Wordpress theme, and I think it will play a huge part in the future trend of personal websites..

I have to agree. I feel that things like MySpace and Facebook are taking over somewhat. They do provide free webpages, but there is only so much you can do because you have to follow their layouts. It is just a whole lot easier and cheaper for many to express themselves through these channels sometimes, rather than personal webpages. Not to mention the accessibility of communication between friends, family, and co-workers, etc.

I don’t think it’s a factor of “dying”, I think there are sooo many choices to choose one that not everyone networks through the same program, doing so, makes people widen their type of programs, making it harder to just focus on one alone (or you an be like me and just copy and paste everything.. LOL) if someone doesn’t get as many responses from program a, than they do program b, they drop program a, let it die, and continue updating program b. doing so leaves so much wasted space out there that could be reused for someone else.

Any more what’s the point of a personal site? Myspace and Facebook do it all for you. On top of that you can easily find out what all of your friends are doing, as well, all of their friends are doing by simply logging on to a site. Your information is all uniformly held where everyone knows its at with no mystery. I agree it is a dying art with social media. It gives even the least technical people to show their own point of view. Web has never been easier to access than it is right now.

Hi Chris. Im American in China and a recent fan of yours. I have the only English language website in Beijing about motorsports for 3 years but Im thinking of closing it.

First, it costs me 150 dollars per year which I have to pay for and Im not rich, Second, Im losing interest in racing in Beijing and third, I have started other interests such a digital art and videos that are not car related. I have made over 20 videos about Beijing racing and car sports but i want to expand my video production.
I wonder what I should do?

Lewis in Beijing

Totally agree with you! It just makes so much sense to create an independent site that’s about yourself and where you’re aggregating all your content. You just don’t want to send your network around to all the special services, an aggregation place is way easier for them
That’s exactly the direction where we’re heading with Jimdo (www.jimdo.com):: create a website within no timale, blog within your site, determine what the site looks like (even with own design) and aggregate all your stuff at one place.

Now, what would really help is “real” dataportability - users would then be able to use the SNs as a core and the personal website as a perfect add-on.

@Andrew: agree, but try out Jimdo, it’s as easy as it gets.
@brian: do you really new friends to check you out on MySpace or Facebook first? Wouldn’t be an independent place where you determine design, structure and content yourself do better?

To me i think the social blogging is getting started and growing so faster than i think.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://e-ringtech.com

That’s the Web archive of my previous site, which was when I was naive and tried starting my own business. You can see in the later dates I discovered Wordpress and Blogging.

http://edenware.net is my main site now, and it pretty much is a business. My friend in the Netherlands and I are working on some software together.

http://ering.edenware.net is my personal blog, not much there, but hopefully I will start writing at least 1 post per day.

Unfortunately, I wanted to register the domain name ringle.com, because eddieringle.com is sort of long, anyways, that domain is taken, so I’ll have to figure something else out.

Going back to your information overload piece. I think this ties into that. We are bombarded with ways to receive info, but also way’s in which to deliver. It is maddening, and I have kind of dabbled in a few of them. I don’t know how some people manage to post seemingly every moment of their day on the internet. That would put me over the edge. I am a simple, and an absolute novice web site creating, browsing, consumer.

I have my own personal website which I started out for fun when I was 8. I kinda lost track of it though because of time. I still own the domain and I’m planning to do so for the rest of my life. Because it is, me. The reason though I haven’t really done anything with it is because a) I don’t really know what to put on it and b) there’s so many people who are able to see it. Thus also people from school. Which means I have to really think about what I put on there. And I don’t really have time to do that.

I might pick up with it since I’m getting back to personal sites (as in the topic) alot lately, which might be a sign. But sure interesting to know we’re killing personal sites.

Thanks for sharing
Kingdutch

Im a web developer and have many websites.. These are just some:

Trax eyeOS (My OS)
PiczoTube (My First!)
Live Designs (My Web Design Company)
Kool3d (Tech News, Forums Etc.)

cris sounds like mr smith

I can’t wait to get my hands on the new theme chris has had designed.

i thought you were serouis when you were switching to xp! lol

I have built websites for others - but never got down to doing my own. Why? Because I have nothing to sell - not even myself - at least right now. The whole idea is to sell yourself, your ideas, your products, your socialbility- all of which is fine with me.

There was an item on PBS about teenagers online - saying that they were almost a different species than those older generations - because they did everything online.

I have said, for a long time now, that we would all become part of a “hive mind”. Everyone would have an organic implant which would tie them into a worldwide “computer” system. Every word, breath, and electrical thought/impulse would be out there for everyone to know. I know, I know I read (and I actually read hard copy books still) too much sci-fi.

I remember my first page on MediaOne, nothing like the blog of today. Mainly it was just a statement of who I was, my likes and dislikes, and links. Now to be relevant you must be a publisher, an advertiser, a reporter, and a commentator.

my personal webpage is igoogle :D

ive stopped using my personal site since ive started using facebook and my facebook page is what i edit the most

same ere

I keep up my blog very regulary. And I have a point where people can find me. However EXACTLY like Chris said, I use Twitter the most. I watch a lot of vids on youtube, and I have a few friends on myspace, but when all is said and done, twitter is the best.

So according to Chris, I’m set ^_^!

My first real presence on the web was at http://www.knightlyreviews.netdork.net The Knightly Reviews was, and still is an attempt to review various products from a disability and accessibility point of view. I say it still is, because at last check the site was still up, even if I have lost the ability to update it do to a communication break down with the friend of mine running the server. I also say still is, because I am still writing the same types of articles you will find in the site above, in hopes that soon I will find a new home for them… or that I will find my friend again and be able to reestablish contact and reclaim my little piece of the net. Take a look… let me know what you think, and if you, the community have any ideas about how I might bring KR back to life, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

There is a way to also have people trace your content back to you is if you use the same username and if not on your website post the list of all the usernames you use.

I have many online accounts on various social websites and a website of my own. But I found that the info I want to give and the things I want to do online cannot be contained on one “home page”. If I find a song I like I might make a video of it for YouTube If I have an interesting story I may share it through twitter or a networking site. Or if I have a thought on a subject or something I might Vlog or Blog about it… My thoughts and what I want to do change and are not 1 dimensional so I find it better to share them through Multiple accounts and networks online.

The only “home page” I have is for what I am beginning to do professionally and has little to nothing to do with what I discuss or do online. Though I have “Social Me” links from that central page they are very much two different sides of me that are linked online. So will home pages completely die? I don’t think so. Every application online serves a different purpose for each different interest and dimension you have. And that is something that is always growing. Your home page serves a purpose like Twitter does, and just because you have both of them and may not link the two, that doesn’t mean that either is dead.

Yes I agree totally Chris. What i have really noticed lately is the number of unused sites. People will build them for about a week, and then just leave it there to sit for a period of time.
I guess you could use this event as littering the web. Since people that do this are scattering bits and pieces of sites all over the web.
Good Article Chris
Thanks
Bradley Bradwell

Chris,

I don’t have a personal blog, but I do have a blog that is dedicated to news about robots/robot kit reviews/robot competitions/basically everything robotic! I have started this only because there aren’t a whole lot of them, and I think that I might have started something pretty big.
( robonews.wordpress.com )

The fact that we have so many personal blogs reflects what society is like. For some strange reason people think that they are so important and everyone wants to listen to them complain about their lives. They think that they are the center of the universe. I just don’t understand. Why would you actually want to read some complete stranger’s blog unless they are talking about something OTHER than their office’s politics or their current relationship?

The reason I read your blog is not because of the theme you use, rather it is because you put your personality and geeky humor into your work, thus making your blog posts enjoyable to read.

I hope not! I suppose to look at the numbers they are in fact diminishing. In my experience the lack of meaningful content on our personal sites is the reason why they are disappearing. I have had in the past my own personal site and it was geared toward family and information on my family. Now I have changed my vision. I believe that the personal site should reflect me. It should be a ‘personally’ fulfilling page. That is why I have created http://www.thesleepygeek.com and started to work on meaningful content that I believe in. Now, I am creating for myself and when you do that, you will most definitely find people who see your vision and share your ideas. Case and point? chris.pirillo.com!

I like your idea of a “social me” site/page. I need to give that more thought and see if I couldn’t incorporate something like into my site.

Anyway, to chime in on your question about personal sites dying, I think the answer is yes. Most personal sites, I think, have died or simply transformed into a blog. Once those folks heard “there’s money in blogging” they dropped their “personal” in favor of a “personal” blog. Then, they realized they just weren’t making that “easy money” they dropped the “personal” from their blog in favor of a focused niche hoping the change would start the flow of cash. All that being said, no really talks about starting a “personal site” anymore. They seem to always talk about starting a blog.

I like writing about things and sharing my experiences on the web, so I appreciate an area that gets traffic. I like helping people with computers, electronics, modding, cars, whatever… so a site that gets me out there where I can help is what I desire. A personal site is less efficient than something like a forum or a social network. I personally hang around the [H]ard Forums and Deviant Art. I am very active on the forums so that I may learn and help others as much as possible. This is also a reason I enjoy you and your little corner of the web here Chris.

I don’t think blogs are dying, as long as the readers are interested and the content on the blog is good, the blog will stay alive. But when a blog becomes boring, readers will go elsewhere.

I never had a real “home page” I had some of those free pages, but I had them password protected, and I only gave the address to Family and Friends. My blog on the other-hand, was completely open and visited quite a lot. Recently, however, I have kinda drooped off on updating my blog. IDK why, but I just have. =(

its a lonely pass time [got a 360 ] and blog at the pplay site but if people come they dont respond much ,im sort of getting to the stage you discribe
noted many of the 360 sites have lots of non active members ,the music site has blogging but it goes onto a comunal page but the time between updates makes it little more than a music notice board ,
the most often quote seems to be im bored
so there you go im there picking music [just posted my last blog bemoaning the same sentiment]
sort of given up on the 360 ,bhut thinking to write a few more because this answer thing gets boring too ,this unhealthy obsession for that little girl is a real worry ,all speculation ,not really new’s” ,and currency it isnt much
but its a ratings winner ,saving us discussing real news
[dont mention the war]

[...] Oysterjelly565. I couldn’t really find any info about this guy. Maybe he should have taken Chris’s recent advice to make sure you have an online home. To quote Chris: It’s great to have accounts on many [...]

I’m sorry but for WHATEVER REASON!!!!, I can’t a: get into the chat room to talk about the MAJOR problem I’m having with the new theme right now… b: I can’t change my avatar AT ALL!!!!!!! I tried to go through all the steps and it says it can’t enter the edit_avatar site, or when I go to change it through the profile page, it doesn’t do anything, it just refreshes the page over an over and over and not accepting my stuff what so ever! please take a look into it.

i myself have only a myspace and facebook and youtube
which i use really to talk to my friends
ive managed a few sites before
But i really dont archive anything now because its not really that important to me
if people really care about it they can find it on thier own

yea, i feel that they are dying, i mean so many people have made them and there’s gonna be less and less people reading them as they are made, because it’s just so much basically “useless” information, although yours is very informative, i’m just saying hte population of people making them will increase and then the readers will decrease, then no one will be reading them, people will give up with writing them, and they will die. thanks chris, that’s just my opinion

I don’t really have much to say to the world so I don’t bother. I share my life with my Facebook and Flickr friends. If I came up with a great business idea or wanted to try and make a difference then I probably would. For just a personal website it doesn’t seem worth it for what you can do on something like Facebook, MySpace etc in a little time even with things like .Mac making it easy to create websites and keep them up to date.

chris, you hit the nail on the head here buddy. I have been looking for one place were I can have everything so i can tell my friends to go to just one website to find out all about me. You have mad my wish come true with your new WicketPixie theme and I am glad to see that you have the brains to pick up on this. Once you get the last bugs fixed I think WicketPixie might be the best theme on the web. This is for one reason and one reason only. It integrates every were you are on the web into one place. Good Job.

I don’t think that personal home pages and blogs are dying, I just think that they are changing. With so many different free services that people can use, it is just easier to use them then to have your own; unless your popular as Chris and have access to people in the know.

I really do like the aspect of “Social Me” in WicketPixie. It is a really great idea to point people to. If you are following someone on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, as a follower you have to go to each of the different sites to find out what is new. If you have a “Social Me” page, you are linking all of the new information into an easily accessible location that doesn’t require an username and password. This makes it easy for new followers to find out about person’s interests.

Interesting article. My personal blog died, but I had an awesome idea of digitizing and hosting my family tree. However, there are still lots of blogs and personal websites around that won’t be going anywhere.

It is very sad, to see that social networking has brought death upon homepages and blogs! I will still continue to use them, but maybe it is a good thing?

I think personal pages are dying because there is no practical use for them any longer. A social network does practically everything a personal homepage does. Except social networks do everything that is a manual annoying process automatically.

Today I think personal pages or blogs either exist to die or to evolve. Personal pages or blogs for the most part start out a jumbled mess of ideas and if the person cant find what gets traction they die slowly. If they can find traction they evolve and become much less personal, and more business like in organization.

I don’t think the personal site/blog is vanishing… but I argue that the hosts of personal sites and blogs are consolidating and making it easier for people who are not technically internet or computer savvy.

Before sites like myspace and facebook and 1up etc etc etc… you had to have a fair amount of knowledge to create and upload websites onto the internet. The sites that took off THEN typically became something bigger and better later. When companies found that they could have big groups of people pooled together to create their own “personal” spaces online, that’s when they started making the bucks… blog sites popped out of some of these areas. Then the “blog” became very popular amongst the many.

All this is fairly new stuff still, but I think what draws people to the internet these days is not necessarily to socialize so much as to purchase and find information (just my opinion though based on what I know of my friends and family).

So I guess it comes down to what you figure a “personal” site is… some say a myspace page is personal to them… some are more “old school” and believe that having your own domain is personal… so I think it just comes down to a matter of opinion in this case.

What do you think?

Kind Regards,
-Shaina

I have built a personal web site for my watercolor paintings, however I think personal web pages are going away.
The reason I believe personal sites are going away is that social networking sites allow you to have a “presence” without a personal site.
My Space, flicker, youtube are sites that are used to have a web persona. And there are tons more.
Now get out there and be careful.

Well, we are evolving, before i had a homepage but i don’t have the time to update it, not many people were visiting it, you have to guess what the people that visits the page wants, that isn’t a easy task because people have many different opinions , the main reason why people shut down their homepages is 1. The lack of time to update, people have much other things to worry about. 2. too few are intrested what you are writing about or they leave because the site hasn’t been updated in a while.

Very interesting points.

I’d like to add a different voice (for a change). Sometimes one can express different aspects of their personality in different ways. Perhaps a page on a hobby and a blog for current commenting…

Some people may not WANT all that socializing or to be found/located/tracked/stalked while online. Quite honestly, this is why I don’t use IM clients. If I have to listen to phones all day, why do I want their analog ringing in my ear while I’m enjoying MY time?

-lefty
ThermionicEmissions

Heh, I didn’t read all posts, but I think that Blogs etc. are dying, but at all WEB 2.0 with its community sites is “growing up”. I think that people want to meet others on community sites, play Second Life and make more interactive blogs (Chris’s show is kind of it) ’cause lot of more people’ll see your video blog on youtube, or your profile on myspace, than your blog on one (commonly even not indexed by google/yahoo/altavista…) of thousands blog sites

And like always sorry for my english, but I’m 15 years old polish ;)

funny when he said “webmaster” all nerdy, lol

My Parents Were in a Car Accident What is the Future of Air Travel? What will Cars of Tomorrow be Like? Are Brick and Mortar Stores Better than eTailers? What was the First / Last Movie you saw in a Theater?Are Personal Home Pages and Blogs Dying?Could you Live Without Email or the Web? Is your Avatar a Gravatar? A USB Grommet Hub for your Home Office New Flash Player Software Beta

It is humorous how you mention this when I just installed Wordpress on my website not too long ago. However, I do agree that personal websites and blogs are decreasing in numbers. I think people are finding other ways of sharing their media with family through various files hosting sites and direct file transfers via iChat. It is much more economical to do it these ways rather than purchase a hosting plan through a hosting company.

Thanks for the GoDaddy coupon but no thanks, XD

Sorry, my family had a page that we all shared and connected with in about ‘00, though I don’t use it any more. Personal pages, IMO, are reserved for people who REALLY rely on the web for human interaction.

I dont think they are completely dying, i just think its in a recession. Sure, there are tons off massive social networking places, but there are also thousands of blogs out there. I doubt personal sites and blogs will ever die, as some one somewhere will want to continue theres. :)

I never have blogged, I don’t plan to either. I do use myspace, but that is the closest I get to blogging. I do think that blogs are dying, I know some people who blog, but they are mostly older than I am (I’m in High School).

i agree with the things that some of the others are they arent really dying but on the web there are multiple ways to do 1 thing. SOme are easier than others. Making your own personal website for your contents is still obviously used but there are also one that are ready for you to put in what you want

Very interesting article. I have never though about this, but it is very true. I have multiple accounts on various websites, and I have nowhere website to link them too! I am about to make a free Wordpress when the WicketPixie theme comes out.

Great article Chris!

I know what you mean! I’ve seen this happen at a lot of websites. Webmasters need to keep updating their websites constantly and also participate in their own forums. This would really help keep the website alive.

I do not think that blogs and websites are dying i think they are growing. I do think that things like social networking sites are encroaching on their territory a little but but not to the point where it impedes their growth.

Great Article!

actually, you only need to know HTML and CSS. Javascript will only make it more interactive and unless you need something like a feedback form, you don’t need to knpw PHP. XML is useless uness you plan on sending something like feeds or yu want to setup a guestbook w/o mysql, but you’ll need PHP for that.

I use HTML because CMS like Adobe Contribute won’t recognize server-side include. I just get more benefit from using HTML on every page of the site.

I use HTML on every page inside a php script….thats why i love php….you can just pile in some javascript, some html, some xml ect. I wrote an entire web site in 1 script…it had a calender, a forum, a feedback meter (good and bad), and all the other milarkey you would find on basic websites

Hi Chris!

I watched your video about this topic on YT.
I decided to put links to all my personal webpages into one single site so people can easily find contents I published and to keep everything organized. That was the great advice.
If you click on my nickname you can see what I have done yesterday after watching Chris video (created a webpage).
Google has many ways to fit your internet needs. One of them is Google Pages service. Although the web address this service give you when you create a page is on googlepages.com domain it can be very usefull to congregate all the stuff you have on internet. Another reason I used this service is because it’s free, and I don’t want to pay the hosting in order to have “custom” web domain. I might consider to buy a domain name in the future. But, for now, I am satissfied with this situation. @Google fans: try this service and have things organized the way you want. You can always edit or remove the page if you don’t like it.

Nobody cares…

If nobody cares, then you should not have replied.

That sounds interesting. I also heard that you can use PHP include to embed navigation, but due to the fact that I could not get the navigation to show up, I had to use server-side include.

PHP is a really powerful language…it goes hand in hand with mySQL so you can create extreamley powerful web based things like forums, games, blogs, and just great sites in general….you should consider learning it but if your serious about web design learn the following (in order)

Html
xml
(Xhtml)
javascript
css

and finally php….thats basicly the order you should do it so that you can learn it easy -> hard and then at the end you can (if wanted) pile them all into one php script

How could CSS be harder than Javascript, because my book on HTML 4 had me learning somethings of CSS at the same time as HTML? I’ve got books on HTML 4, CSS, Javascript, and PHP. However, I can’t learn PHP MyQL connections very well, because I can”t connect to my hosts server but I do have PHP and MySQL running on my computer. At the same time, I couldn’t create a full guestbook.

Why not?

because it shows that somebody does care.

I have to agree with this as well. I couldn’t live with out my personal page otherwise I would feel unorgranzied and I would know where I was on the web. I really can’t wait until WicketPixie the will help me a ton. I have also tried talking people into getting a personal page so their stuff is in one place. I think it is starting to die though.

who, me? I don’t care, I just have nothing to do. sorry…

YOUR MOM IS MALARKEY, BUTTFACE!

oh no css is easy…its just I recomend learning the actual heart of the scripts and then just fanciying them up..

I don’t think they’re dying, just that Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and blogs are taking over the role. I know they have for me.

thanks for clearing that up. CSS is pretty nice though. However, I don’t like how CSS can override other CSS, because for a while my site had a white background, not black and it was because of two HTML pages that were placed in there via server-side include