DanThornton

Tech, Geekery, Pop Culture, Miscellaneous

2019 – Back to Reading and Blogging

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It’s been a bit of a strange start to 2019 so far. The end of 2018 was fairly busy and stressful due to a combination of work and family commitments. And when we did finally stop for the festive season, it was an invitation to every possible illness doing the rounds to come and infect us. So plans and resolutions all got put on hold. Now it’s February, and it feels like I’m finally well enough to actually begin the year…

I’ve never found resolutions work particularly well, and I’ve seen enough psychological evidence suggesting that it’s more productive to start new habits in small and manageable ways. Rather than resolving to completely change my life, it’s been better to do things like just not buy junk food (so it isn’t available), go and buy a vape kit and start using it (no more smoking), and start exercising on a daily basis (my small routine of simple workouts was going well until illness interfered).

There’s always things I’d like to improve in my personal life, but generally I’m pretty happy with most of the improvements I’ve made. It’s taken time and a little effort, but I’m a bit healthier, happier and confident about continuing to get a little better at various aspects of daily life.

For example, it’s now more than 18 months since I smoked a cigarette. I’m spending quality time with my son every week, and I’m fortunate enough to be in a great relationship with someone I care about very much.

The One Habit That Got Away

There is one habit which I haven’t been fulfilling. And it’s surprising as during my childhood and teenage years, I was a voracious reader. Every night ended with me devouring page after page.

But somewhere in adulthood my reading dropped – probably because my days involve so much reading and writing online that I found myself putting off relaxing with a good book.

I wanted to change that – there’s been plenty written about why books offer a different experience than online articles, so I’m not going to rehash it. But somehow, I didn’t quite get back into reading as regularly as I’d have liked.

Getting some great books for Christmas should help develop my reading habit again

So now the focus is back on ramping up my reading. And having some great books helps. I’ve recently finished Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, which has definitely reminded me of the value you get from settling down with a good book rather than sitting at my work desk in front of a screen. Plus, I also got back into fiction with Ready Player One.

And thanks to some very kind people sending me some of my Amazon wishlist for Christmas, I now have the following to help my reading:

Getting Back to Blogging

Due to work, illness, the release of WordPress 5.0 changing how blog posts are written, the need to switch hosting providers and not having had a rest from writing for my various sites in years led to a bit of a hiatus for the past few months.

Initially I felt like I’d failed by just pausing from posting on all of my sites. But given that they’re primarily side projects for pleasure at the moment, I also felt like I’d burned out. Having taken on more work, and devoted more time to family life, I’d had less time to dig out inspiration, less time to sit and write without feeling like I’d finished enough client work, and feeling increasing unwell wasn’t helping…

But it’s turned out to be a good thing. Traffic to my sites hasn’t disappeared overnight. I’ve been able to rest and recuperate. And focusing on client work has kept my business and income at the level required for a reasonable standard of living.

And now I have the itch to make progress again, I’ve had time to think about how I can do it more effectively. My aim is to create more things worth sharing, and to build up my sites to become a more sustainable, productive collection of titles that people really enjoy and want to be part of.

Plus it’s obvious that the new Gutenberg WordPress editor is here to stay, so it’s time to really get to know it for my client work, and my own sites. I’ll be sure to share tips and guides on TheWayoftheWeb as I discover more.

So 2019 really starts here. And I can’t wait!

Support your local independent blog?

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The result of eCommerce on the High Street has been that you either find cool little independent shops which offer something you can’t easily replicate online, or massive chains which provide goods you need right now. The main effect of disruption has been for people stuck in the middle like Woolworths and HMV.

And small, local shops have probably never been more celebrated. There are days to officially support them, awards for the best of them, campaigns to promote them, and ways for them to come together.

Doughnuts - CC Licence, Leon Ephraim www.yummygum.com
Doughnuts – CC License, Leon Ephraim www.yummygum.com

I’ve never owned a shop, so it’s been a reasonably good thing for me. I like small businesses that do something interesting, I like the fact I can find almost anything online, and when I need to go to a large shopping centre or supermarket, there’s one somewhere nearby.

But I wonder what will happen if the internet goes the same way. Will there be any outcry of support for small websites and blogs?

In almost every niche there’s an example of ‘big chain’ publishing. The large publishers of the past have managed to somehow survive and adapt somewhat successfully to the digital world, even if it’s been with reluctance.

And there are the big content shopping centres of the internet; Facebook, which is so ubiquitous people around the world don’t even associate it with being part of the internet. Yahoo!, still. And Medium.

In many ways I like Medium.

It looks nice. It launched with a focus on writing, and particularly long-form writing. There’s the secret paid support for some writers and public offers for some others. You don’t have endless advertising, or fifty thousand recommended articles from Outbrain, Taboola, or Zerg etc. And there are countless fantastic articles on subjects I’ve never even considered reading about, alongside the things which I know would interest me.

But in some ways I hate it.

It’s no longer about just long-form. You now have a stream which mixes longer and much shorter pieces. And the idea is that it provides the best one-stop place for all content, just as Facebook began with connections, Youtube for video, and Google for search.

It feels more and more like the Bluewater Shopping Centre of online publishing. Nice design, good amenities, and an easy place to spend more time and money than you intended. But also slightly soulless and constricting.

And every day we read about another death of blogging, as someone with a fairly well-known name decides to give it a rest for a while.

In print publishing there has always been the odd breakout hit in an industry dominated by those who could afford the staff, the presses and the distribution. And the same will be true of digital publishing in the future. But sadly I doubt we’ll see the same types of support for the small-to-medium websites and blogs which let you feel like you were entering a local cafe, pub or someone’s living room to listen to what they had to share and discuss it with them.

You need to own your media creations…

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First, read ‘Read this and re-think your LinkedIn usage‘.

Then, read ‘Portrait of Twitter as a Young Media Company‘.

Then realise how important it is to have a central location for yourself, or for you business, which you have some control over – particularly around licensing.